


In Medias Res

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [55]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:32:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forced emotion; Team Soups; Plans of kidnapping; Not really a discussion (opinions not required); Memorial Day; Posting the glist; Individual wisdom; The Year in Song (and a month Schue should have skipped); Finals; Awards night; PFLAG farewell; Graduation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is it. This is the last episode in our alternate Season 3. 
> 
> We're not done, not by a long shot, but this is the end of this particular format and of the high school story. This story leaves all our boys, as the title suggests, still in the thick of it. 
> 
> We haven't decided on a posting schedule yet, but there's summerfic, fic cycles, the continuance of the Rambling Wrecks story, and lots more still to come. 
> 
> It's been a long, strange journey and we've loved every minute of it. Thanks for sticking with us through over one million words. We hope you'll stick around for what comes next.

Rachel takes another look in the mirror and frowns. She had anticipated the agonizing over what to wear and how to look for Senior Showcase or Awards Night or graduation, but somehow, she hadn't anticipated this. It's just a Wednesday in the middle of finals week, and somehow it's become more important to her than any of those other days. It's their last glee club meeting and the day that they officially tell the new glee club all the things they've learned.

She's still not sure she made the right decision for her song of the month. It seemed so simple when she drew it, almost two weeks ago, but now she thinks that maybe it wasn't quite right. Nevertheless she'll do an excellent job, and it will be fine. Surely no one took the assignment so seriously as to find songs that fit perfectly or near–perfectly.

It's just that somehow the emotion behind her song feels forced, and she can't figure out why. All she can focus on now is the rest of the club – how each of them has come to tolerate and even love her; how she never expected to have friends like them, much less eleven of them. Rachel knows she'll never communicate her gratitude well. All this time she's been looking forward to Juilliard, and now suddenly it's all approaching too soon.

 

Those are three strange, strange boys, Brooklyn decides. She and Nat had a little bet about which two of them were together—or whether or not it was all three—but it’s not actually any clearer after having spent the whole day doing relay races and pie eating contests with them. She was pretty sure at first that, maybe, Puck and Kurt? Now, she’s just got no clue and is defaulting to her original statement: gay guys are _so_ weird. 

Team Soups totally cleaned up with all the races and contests. Brooklyn and Nat’s superior lesbian brain power—okay, technically Nat has superior _bi_ brain power—combined with those strange boys’ athletic prowess meant that the only competition they even had were those cardiologists. Nat said she wasn’t sure that one of them was really even a doctor; he might have been a ringer they brought in from the OSU track team. Whether or not he was a ringer, it didn’t make a difference when it came that Frisbee–throwing game. Who knew Kurt Hummel had an arm like that? 

By the end of the day, Finn had grabbed some random girl so they’d have six for the tug of war. Brooklyn complained that it was supposed to be Team _Soups_ , but Finn said, “Well, it’s Lima, so you know. Odds are good she’s a little bit gay.” They won the tug of war, too, and everybody got filthy and laughed and hugged (except random girl, who sort of fled, quickly), and then Kurt and Finn’s mom came over and gave Finn a big kiss on the cheek. Puck and Kurt looked pissed off; probably a favoritism thing. 

The five of them all ended up walking to their cars with their arms around each other, singing ‘We Are the Champions’ at the top of their lungs, and Brooklyn thinks it was a pretty awesome day. Too bad the three of them won’t be around for the picnic _next_ year. 

 

So it’s a sad statement about the world when all the adults can sit around with their thumbs up their asses and let Dave Karofsky take care of everything, right up to the point where he’s not going to be around anymore, then conveniently decide he ought not to be doing all of that and mess up all the months of good work he’s done on Casey’s behalf. If Miles had expected much better from any of them, he’d be sadly disappointed, but Miles never has had that much faith in the majority of the adults in this town. If they were anywhere near as smart and together as Miles’ Ma, Lima never would have gotten the shape it’s in to begin with. 

“You know what, Foots?” Miles announces, politely ignoring the fact that Rick and Alicia are all wrapped around each other on the sofa, watching whatever sappy, girly romance movie that Alicia decided the two of them are watching. “It’s not right, is what it is. It’s just not right.”

“We know, Miles,” Alicia sighs. “It’s not right. We know. We agree with you.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, Brown,” Rick says, like his input’s actually needed, anyway, after how he just blabbed any old thing that came to his mind when _he_ got called in to Coach’s office. 

“Well, who asked you, Foots?” Miles snaps. 

“Uh. You did, Brown. Just a second ago.” Rick looks confused and turns his head to Alicia, like she’s going to somehow make sense out of all of it.

Alicia shrugs and then rolls her eyes at Miles. “Don’t worry about it, Daniel. Miles likes to think he has more power than he actually does.”

“I don’t think I have any power here, Alicia,” Miles says. “That’s what’s making me so mad. _We’re_ the ones who actually know what’s been going on! Me and Rick were the ones over there at Shep’s house after Cherry got home from the hospital, not Coach. Shep’s the one been making sure everything’s how it’s supposed to be, not Coach. But now she’s the one who gets to make all the decisions?” Miles shakes his head. “I’m telling you, Alicia, we need to get Ma involved in this.”

“Can Ma do anything?” Alicia looks uncomfortable. “I mean, you’d think Mr. Karofsky would be involved, Miles, but.” She frowns. “And Casey was already going to be so sad when Dave leaves for Georgia Tech.”

“Ma could, I don’t know, kidnap him or something!” Miles says. “But that’s not the point. It’s not about him being sad when Shep leaves. Nothing we can do about that. They’re snatching him out of his home, is what they’re doing, and don’t you think that’s already happened to Cherry enough at this point?” He throws himself down onto the sofa next to Rick. “He could come stay here with us, or hell, he could stay at Shep’s place and we could visit him a lot. No reason to be dragging that poor boy all over the place. It’s just not right.”

“I don’t know that kidnapping him’s a good idea,” Rick says, finally. “He’s small, but he’s sorta noisy, so it might be hard to get him off of campus.”

“Yeah, Foots,” Miles sighs. “The noise. That’s the problem with that plan.”


	2. Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not really a discussion.

David is waiting outside Casey’s classroom when Casey finishes his final exam, looking like he does every day when he meets Casey after class. Casey does his best to smile, but it’s probably not a very good smile, for all his effort. 

“Hi, David,” Casey says. 

“Hey, Case,” David responds, his voice a bit more tentative than usual. “I, uh. Told Dad we’d meet him out front. He’s not really very clear on where anything is around here.”

Casey nods, because he really doesn’t have anything to say in response to that, and when David starts walking down the hallway, Casey follows, not quite keeping up. 

Paul walks up to them just a few minutes after they step outside, and David shifts in place a little. “Well,” he finally says. “Um. Coach Beiste’s office is. This way,” he finishes the sentence awkwardly, nodding at Paul as they start to head back into the school. 

David continues to lead the three of them through the halls, and he stops in front of Coach Beiste’s door when Casey is still halfway down the hall. David waits until Casey is closer, then knocks on Coach Beiste’s door. 

“Come in,” Coach Beiste calls, and then she opens the door, gesturing for the three of them to come in and take a seat. She offers her hand to Paul. “Thanks for coming in, Paul.”

“Of course,” Paul answers, taking her hand and shaking it firmly. As they all sit down, Coach closes the door, then goes to sit behind her desk. 

“I think we all know why we’re meeting, right?” Coach Beiste says. 

Casey glances over at David, but doesn’t answer or even nod his head. David moves his head slightly; it’s not exactly a nod, but it’s enough to let Coach know he’s listening. 

“Yes,” Paul responds. “We do. I’ve had some time to think about what you were saying on the phone, and I admit that while you have several good points, I’m just not certain what you propose is a good solution.”

Casey doesn’t quite let himself breathe a sigh of relief, but he relaxes the tiniest bit. Paul doesn’t seem to want to get rid of him, and that’s a good starting point. Maybe this won’t go as badly as Casey fears, and they’ll get everything straightened out. Maybe he can sign up for swimming or some other activities, and it will be enough to make everybody feel like he’s got enough other things in his life, and nobody has to worry about him. 

“What would you propose then?” Coach asks. “Frankly, from where I sit, Paul, the current situation is hurting both of these boys.” She turns to David and Casey then. “I’m sorry, boys. I don’t know if this is something you should hear or not. It seems like talking about everything behind your back isn’t a good plan, but having you here isn’t really, either.”

David sighs heavily. “We’re here, but it feels like our input isn’t really necessary.” 

Casey slides down in his seat a little, tries to take up less space, twisting a piece of his hair. David’s right, that their input isn’t needed or particularly wanted. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be having this meeting at all, because Casey’s only input on this matter is that he’s happy where he is, he wants to stay where he is, and he doesn’t want to have to go anywhere else. 

“It’s true that ultimately the decision isn’t up to either of you,” Coach agrees. “But I guess I’m just hoping that you can understand why I’m concerned, at the very least. The situation as it currently stands isn’t good for David and it isn’t good for Casey, at least based on what I’ve been observing and learning.”

“I still am not sure about that assertion,” Paul says. “Both boys are happy. They have excellent grades. I do agree that perhaps some additional extracurricular activities for Casey might be in order; David could have possibly had more himself. They have a nice circle of friends. I’m afraid I just don’t see how it’s unhealthy.”

Paul isn’t going to let this happen. Casey feels pretty sure about that. Coach Beiste thinks that she sees what’s going on, but Paul knows that everybody is happy and there’s no reason for Casey to have to go anywhere else. 

“Paul, you’ve raised a remarkable young man in David, one I am proud to claim as one of my students, and yes, Casey has clearly blossomed in the time he’s been with you. However, I’m not sure.” Coach Beiste stops and shakes her head. “You’re listed as his guardian, but it’s David here who’s been actually parenting him, by all accounts.”

 _Parenting_ him? David does a lot, too much, but that’s not _parenting_. David’s his best friend, and they have whatever it is they have that happens at night and that they don’t talk about, and they spend a lot of time together. It’s not parenting or anything like that. 

“What are you talking about?” Paul demands. 

“Contradict me, please, boys, if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that David’s the one who makes sure Casey gets to his therapy appointments, he’s the one who makes sure Casey eats, he’s listed as Casey’s emergency contact, and is described by their circle of friends as ‘taking care of Casey’.”

Casey cuts his eyes over to David, who looks back at Casey, and then they both look at Coach Beiste. There’s nothing Casey can say to any of that, because all of it is true, though something about the way Coach Beiste describes it makes it sound like there’s something wrong with it. Nothing felt wrong with it before, but hearing it out loud like this makes it so very obvious how much David does for him, and how much _too much_ it is. 

“And frankly,” Coach continues, “David can’t continue to do those things while he’s at college, but Casey will, I assume, still need someone to do some of those things, at the very least. Casey doesn’t need to be worried about who will do these things, and neither does David.” 

“I can drive myself to my appointments,” Casey says, a little too loudly.

Coach gives him a strange look, like that wasn’t exactly the answer she was expecting. “As I said. Some of those things.” She looks back at Paul. “That is why I’m concerned, Paul.”

Paul looks troubled, and then turns to David and Casey. “Boys, is what Coach is saying accurate?”

“I can do that stuff!” Casey blurts out. “I can do all of that stuff myself, when David goes, and it’ll be fine. Everything will be fine, because I can _do_ all of that!”

“Sixteen year olds shouldn’t be completely independent, Casey,” Coach says gently. 

David scratches the back of his head, looking uncomfortable as he turns to his dad. “It’s uh. I mean, it’s not. I don’t think of it like that.”

“I can do more,” Casey insists. “I can try harder, I won’t need anybody to do that stuff. I can take care of all of it. It won’t be any trouble. _I_ won’t be any trouble!” He starts breathing faster and can’t quite take a deep breath, the air coming in small bursts instead. 

“Calm down, Casey,” Coach instructs. “Nice and slow, okay? This isn’t about what you can do. It’s about what adults should be doing for you.”

“No, I don’t _need_ anybody to do anything for me! I’m _fine_ , it’s good, I like it at David’s house, I don’t want to go anywhere else!” His breaths get shallower and faster, and he does his best to keep his eyes from tearing up. “Please, can’t everything just stay how it is? _Please?_ ”

“Casey.” Coach’s voice is low as she tries to calm him down, talking him through slower and deeper breathing. It doesn’t make a difference, though. Casey still can’t take a deep breath and he can’t calm down, not in the middle of all of this.

“Case.” David says his name firmly. “C’mon, Casey. Calm down, okay? Deep breath. Pretend, uh. You’re making coffee.” 

Casey nods his head, barely, at David’s words and takes the deepest breath he can. It’s not that deep, and it catches, but it’s a little better on the second breath and the third one. He has tears in his eyelashes and it makes everything a little blurry. “David,” he says, quietly. “I don’t _want_ to go anywhere else.”

“I know,” David says with a shrug. “I don’t want you to either. Think they decided it’s not up to us, though.”

“Everything is so good,” Casey says softly. “I guess… I guess nothing ever gets to stay good.”

“Case.” David sighs, looking vaguely guilty. “Nothing stays the same, no.” 

Casey nods his head slowly. There’s nothing more to say to that. He curls up in his chair, because there’s no reason not to at this point. Nothing he says or does is going to change what they decide to do. It never has, really.

“Boys,” Coach says, “I think you two should go out into the hall for a bit. Maybe get a pop or something. Okay?”

David nods slowly and stands up, frowning, and Casey follows without thinking too hard about it. David does go towards the vending machines, getting two pops and then nodding towards the machine with candy in it. “Want anything?”

Casey shrugs, the smallest movement of his shoulders he can make and still have it count, and shakes his head. David nods and opens one of the cans of pop, pressing it into Casey’s hand. 

“We might as well leave,” David announces suddenly. “You could call in sick and we could go down to the center or something.”

Casey shrugs again, nods a little. Whether they go to the center or home or anywhere else, he might have to call in sick, anyway. He can’t imagine going in to work like this, not and make it through the day without burning himself or somebody else with steamed milk or setting some espresso on fire. 

 

Dave pulls up at his house and sighs, walking in through the garage without announcing himself or Casey. He can hear the faint hum of the television from the other room, but he still stops at the refrigerator first. 

“That you boys?” Paul calls out. 

“Yeah, we’re back, Dad,” Dave responds, and the television goes silent a moment later. Paul walks into the kitchen and leans against the counter. 

“I suppose we should talk,” Paul says, looking first at Dave and then over at Casey. Dave sighs again and nods. They probably should. Casey almost visibly shrinks, like he’s growing smaller just thinking about talking. Again, though, it’s not really a talk, is it? It’s the adults telling them what’s going to happen. Dave snorts. Yeah, they all feel bad that Dave’s supposedly been doing too much, but the adults are all eager to do the things that involve making decisions but not the ones that require putting in any actual time. 

“Why don’t you just tell us?” Dave says. “It’s not really a discussion, is it? It wasn’t from the time Coach got it in her head to start… poking around.”

Paul frowns. “David, that’s—” He stops himself. “Maybe you’re right. Coach Beiste did seem to have her mind made up.”

“So?” Dave challenges Paul, Casey just watching the two of them. 

“Coach Beiste feels that it would be best—for both of you—if Casey came to live with her and her husband. Give the two of you a chance to be friends that don’t live in the same house and.” He stops and waves his hand, clearly unable to articulate whatever else Coach said to him. “Before you leave, David.”

Dave looks over at Casey, who looks incredibly pale, so pale that it brings to mind images Dave doesn’t really want to think about, and Dave shakes his head slowly, tightening his jaw. Nothing either one of them says is going to change a damn thing. 

“When?” he finally bites out. 

“The ninth,” Paul answers quietly. “We’re all going to have dinner on Friday night. The three of us with Coach Beiste and her husband.”

Casey lets out a long, quiet sigh, and when Dave shifts his gaze back fully to Casey again, Casey looks somehow even smaller. 

“Well.” Dave shrugs. “Guess you guys didn’t need us there after all.” He nods his head slightly towards the stairs and heads out of the kitchen, waiting just at the foot of the stairs to make sure Casey’s following. The two of them walk up the stairs, and Dave ignores whatever his dad is saying, because at that moment, he just doesn’t want to hear it. 

Dave heads into his room and flops onto the bed, and Casey lies down as well. After about ten minutes of silence, Dave turns off the lamp. Might as well sleep. Casey curls into a tiny ball against Dave’s side, his head and the bottom of his legs touching Dave, Casey’s arms wrapped around himself. After a few minutes, Casey’s fingers tangle in Dave’s shirt. Dave sighs heavily and closes his eyes. He can’t fix this. 

 

Casey finishes his sixth period final in almost thirty minutes exactly. He’s dismissed early from class with instructions to go sit in the library until the bell, but when he walks out of the classroom, Miles is in the hall right outside the door, sitting on the ground with his back against the lockers with his earbuds in. When he sees Casey, he stands up and tucks his earbuds into his pocket.

“Hey, Cherry,” Miles says. “You done already? That was pretty quick.”

Casey nods. “It was easy. Hi, Miles. You’re done, too.”

“Yeah, I only had a paper to turn in, though,” Miles explains, with one of his ‘no big deal’ shrugs. “We got to pick between the paper and the final, and I don’t mind papers that much. Hate tests, though!” Miles frowns. “So, you were upset this morning.” That’s one of those good things about Miles, that he doesn’t ask questions when he already knows the answers; he just acknowledges the answer.

“Yeah,” Casey says. 

“It’s the thing with Coach,” Miles says, definitively, and Casey nods once. “They figured out what they’re doing with you and you don’t like it, I’m guessing?”

Casey’s shoulders drop as he nods again, he can feel his face starting to crumple, and he’s sure Miles is probably standing there wondering why he wastes his time being friends with such a crybaby who falls apart over everything, when Miles suddenly says, “Cherry, you just come on over here, now.” 

Miles puts out his arms and Casey flings himself into them, letting Miles pull him into a tight hug. A hug can’t fix anything, but it’s not really meant to, so Casey wraps his arms loosely around Miles’ waist and lets himself be hugged, his face smooshed into Miles’ chest. After a few minutes, Miles loosens his hold on Casey, but doesn’t quite let him go. 

“You want to sit out in the courtyard ’til Shep comes to get you?” Miles asks. “I might already have a couple bottles of pop and some candy in my bag for you, if you want ’em.”

Casey nods, his face still buried in Miles’ shirt, because hugging Miles is easy, and nice, and uncomplicated, and it makes him feel better than he’s felt all day. “Yes,” Casey says, his voice sounding very small to himself. “What kind of candy?”

Miles laughs and gives Casey another tight squeeze before releasing him, leaving one arm across Casey’s shoulders as they start walking down the hall. “Guess you’ve gotta come to the courtyard to find out,” Miles says. When the two of them are sitting at a table in the courtyard, Miles reaches into his backpack and produces two bottles of Code Red Mountain Dew and a bag of Skittles. “They’re not _all_ red, but it was the reddest I could get from the vending machine,” he says, almost apologetically. 

“Oh, Miles,” Casey starts, but his voice is treacherously shaky again, and he has to stop. Miles opens the bag of Skittles and pours some into his own palm, picks out the red ones, and hands them to Casey. 

“You eat those first, and then you tell me about it,” Miles instructs. Casey takes the Skittles and eats them slowly, one at a time, washing them down with the Code Red Mountain Dew that Miles passes to him, already uncapped. Miles sits next to him without talking, basking in the sun shining into the courtyard, and for fifteen minutes, everything is calm and peaceful, and the only thing Casey’s expected to do is eat candy and drink pop. 

When the Skittles are all gone, along with the last of the pop, Casey sighs and glances over at Miles, who still doesn’t say anything or even look impatient. Casey doesn’t want to say it out loud, but maybe it needs to be said. 

“They won’t let me stay with David anymore,” Casey says. “They’re making me move a week from Saturday. They won’t even let me stay until he goes.”

“Shit.” Miles shakes his head. “Hold up. _They_? That implies more than just Coach.”

Casey nods. “Coach Beiste _and_ Paul,” he says, feeling sad all over again. “I thought Paul would let me stay. I guess not.”

“Man, would you want to try to cross Coach?” Miles frowns. “Maybe he just couldn’t win the argument with her, you know?”

“Maybe,” Casey says. “Maybe that’s why. Doesn’t really matter why, though, I guess. This is what they decided.”

“Didn’t even ask you or Shep, I bet.” Miles looks faintly disgusted. “That sucks, Cherry. You want me and Alicia to smuggle you into our house and hide you for a few weeks?”

“I think your Ma might notice,” Casey says. “She’s observant. Probably somebody would figure it out.”

“I wasn’t going to hide you from _Ma_!” Miles exclaims. “Just from Coach. Are you kidding? Ma’d help hide you.”

Casey smiles briefly, but it doesn’t last. “I thought they’d let me stay until David left for Georgia Tech, at least. I don’t know why they won’t. Nobody will say why, just that David and I can be friends in different houses, something like that, and it doesn’t really make any sense at all.”

Miles snorts. “What kind of fool nonsense is that? No, you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense.” He pauses. “What’s Shep say about this damn plan of Coach’s?”

Casey shrugs. “He seems angry about it. He says there’s nothing we can do, though. They didn’t really care what we thought about it and they don’t care what we think about it now, or what we want. And, um. He says it’s all going to change soon anyway.” Casey frowns and pulls at a piece of hair hanging near his eyes. “He’s right. Nobody cares if we like it or not, but it’s what’s happening. So, that’s just. That’s it.”

“Well, it does sound like Shep’s got the measure of it.” Miles sighs. “That’s shit, Cherry. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Casey says. “Me, too. I don’t want to go. He’s already leaving and I won’t see him for months, and I don’t, I _don’t_ understand why they have to make me move now. I don’t understand, Miles. I was so happy there.” He takes a deep breath and sniffles once, then presses his lips together tightly. He’s not going to cry about it again. “I guess… I guess I was too happy.”

“Now, that’s just nonsense, Cherry. There’s no such thing as too happy. They’re just being…” Miles shakes his head. “Stupid. They’re just being stupid, and when you’re eighteen, at least then you can tell them you want to make your own choices or something.” He frowns. “That’s not much consolation now, but at least you know you’re not stupid like them.”

Casey furrows his brow and shakes his head. “No, there’s something. There has to be something, I just can’t figure out _what_. I messed up something somehow. I don’t know _what_.”

“No,” Miles says definitively. “You know why Coach started poking her nose into your business? Because after you three got attacked, she called your emergency number, and for some reason, Shep and his dad put _Shep_ down. So then she started asking questions, Cherry, and you know who she asked? She talked to me and Alicia, right, but she talked to Rick, too, and well.” Miles sighs heavily. “You know Rick doesn’t always think, Cherry.”

“But if there wasn’t something there that I was doing wrong, when she poked, she wouldn’t have found anything,” Casey says. “But I guess she did, and I guess Paul sees it now, too. I told them, I said I’d try harder, and I’d do a better job and drive myself to all my appointments by myself. I don’t need David to do all of that! I can do it!”

“Shh, shh, calm down,” Miles says soothingly. “You know she decided something was wrong. If she didn’t find something, she was going to look like an ass, right? Poking her nose around for no reason. So whatever she found, Cherry, eventually she was going to find a way to make it support _her_ thesis. Not your fault. Not your fault at all.”

“People say that,” Casey says. “That things aren’t my fault. That’s a thing that people tell me. If it’s not my fault, though, why am I the one it all happens to? I think, maybe, if I’m the common denominator…” He sighs and shrugs. “But it doesn’t really matter. This is what’s happening. I can’t do anything about it, and neither can David.”

“First of all? _I_ am not people.” Miles grins a little, then lets it fade “But no, I guess not.” He shakes his head. “It just sucks.” Miles picks up the bag of Skittles and pours more into his hand, carefully removing the red ones and setting them in front of Casey. “You want any of the orange ones, too?”

“No, red’s good,” Casey says. 

Miles nods and continues selecting the red Skittles, eating the non-red ones himself, until the bag of Skittles is empty and all the red ones are on the table staring at Casey, white ‘S’ carefully turned upwards on each one. 

 

Dave punches his pillow irritably, looks at his clock, and scowls. He’s been lying in bed for well over an hour, and he can’t sleep. It’s not because the next day is his last final, or because Sunday is graduation; it’s because of how he feels about Casey leaving and how Casey looks the past few days and how the adults all ‘ignored’ them for weeks and months and then swoop in and just decide everything. 

He sighs and lets his head fall back against his pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Sometimes Paul has a hot toddy when he can’t sleep, and right now, Dave wishes he remembered how it was made, because if he could, he’d go make one, or possibly two, depending on whether or not Casey’s managed to fall asleep. 

Dave must manage to drift off, at least for a few minutes, because one minute he’s alone in his bed, and the next, there’s the warmth of Casey next to him and a soft whispered “Hi” echoing between them. 

Dave smiles lazily, eyes half–open. “Hey,” he breathes. Casey clasps Dave’s hand in his and moves closer until he’s pressed against Dave’s side. Dave turns his head to the side and lets out a deep breath. He can barely make out the outline of Casey in the dark, his eyes shining slightly. 

“Hi,” Casey whispers again, tilting his face up towards Dave. Dave’s grin gets a little wider, and he shifts a little, angling his body in Casey’s direction. Casey closes the distance between them, his lips tentatively touching Dave’s, really just barely making contact. 

They’re awake, they’re both awake, but it’s still during the middle of the night, so Dave decides to forget the whole ‘awake and aware’ thing and just return the kiss, slowly increasing the pressure. Casey kisses back harder, his lips parting slightly, and his hands tangle in Dave’s shirt, one of his legs wrapping around Dave’s. 

Dave brings one hand up to the back of Casey’s head, still kissing Casey, and losing himself in everything his senses are telling him, not thinking too hard about any of it. It’s surprisingly easy, easier than Dave would have anticipated, even if there’s a tinge of desperation to everything. 

Casey slides his hand under Dave’s shirt and up his stomach to the middle of his chest. Dave startles a little, then lets his fingers play with Casey’s hair gently, careful not to pull at all, their lips still pressed against each other. The fingers of his other hand slowly trace along Casey’s cheekbone, then Dave slowly moves them down, running them over Casey’s exposed neck. Casey makes soft whimpers, and Dave slides his fingers lower, following the path of Casey’s collarbone. Casey’s leg tightens around Dave’s and he arches forward into the touch of Dave’s fingers. 

Dave’s hand travels back to Casey’s face, cupping Casey’s cheek and jaw as his lips move against Casey’s, and the fingers of his other hand tighten a bit in Casey’s hair, holding Casey in place. Immediately, Casey moves against Dave, and without moving his lips from Dave’s, gasps, “David!” Dave realizes with a start that Casey is hard, pressing into Dave’s hip, and Dave didn’t know that people’s eyes actually could roll back into their head. He’s pretty sure, though, that his do, and he places the hand that’s not on the back of Casey’s neck around Casey’s shoulder, because at least he can give Casey that. 

 

Casey wakes up with David curled all the way around him, Casey’s body nestled along David’s, his back against David’s chest. By the same kind of unspoken agreement they seem to have about not talking about what happens at night during the daytime, they’ve also managed to politely avoid acknowledging some of the awkward physical stuff that happens when two guys wake up in the same bed together. It’s worked out pretty well so far, nobody’s had to be embarrassed about anything, and it means Casey can keep on sneaking into David’s room at night.

Except last night was different. This morning is different. Casey doesn’t usually wake up with David holding him this tightly, with Casey’s whole body pressed so close to David’s like it is right now, and things are suddenly a lot harder to ignore. It takes every bit of conscious effort for Casey to not push back against him, to not move at all, because moving is _all_ Casey wants to do, but that might not be what David wants. 

Casey’s never thought too far ahead about what he wanted or where this, the nighttime _this_ that they don’t talk about, could go. He’s just taken it night by night, hoping and never expecting, but suddenly he thinks about where it could go, how _far_ it could go, and thinking about that is thrilling and terrifying. 

Then, of course, it hits him that it won’t go far, because in a week, he won’t be here anymore. He won’t be sneaking into bed with David and stealing kisses, sleeping curled against him, feelings David’s arms around him or David’s hands on his face and in his hair like last night. It was never, ever, ever going to be easy, David leaving. There’s no way Casey could be ready for that, but he thought he’d have a month, at least, to _try_. Not a week. 

 

The first thing Dave notices when he wakes up is that both hands are asleep, for whatever reason. He moves his arms slowly, circling his wrists and stretching out his entire body. It takes about ten seconds before Dave registers how close he is to Casey, and he keeps his eyes squinched shut, though he had been on the verge of opening them. 

He stays still for another few seconds, then continues stretching and shaking his hands, because having some feeling back in them would be nice. On the other hand, maybe he’s got a little _too_ much feeling in some other parts of his body, and he resists the urge to sigh heavily. He’s not sure if Casey’s awake, and he’s not going to ask. As long as he doesn’t ask, as long as Casey is still asleep or Dave pretends he is, Dave can feel less awkward about the curve of Casey’s back against his chest. 

Because no matter how much Dave wants what happens at night, that’s for at night, not daytime, and as long as Dave’s eyes are shut and Casey is thought to be asleep, Dave can keep pretending, and not have to face the reality of the day ahead. 

 

Casey flings himself face-first onto David’s bed. “Do you have any really old shirts with holes in them?” he asks, straight into the mattress.

“Huh?” David sounds confused. “Like workout T-shirts?”

“Yes,” Casey says, mostly still straight into the mattress, though he does turn his face just enough to look at David. “I should dress in your cast-offs. Since, um, I’m so horribly neglected. It would be like a costume.”

David snorts inelegantly. “We’ll get some of Dad’s pants, then?” He laughs for a short moment. “Why the preoccupation with clothes?”

Casey makes a noise of frustration into the mattress before rolling over. “Ms. Pillsbury called me into her office. Everybody wants to _talk_ to me now.”

“She was holding a fashion intervention?” David still sounds confused. “I don’t think she’s really qualified for that. I’m not qualified to know if she’s qualified, though, so.”

“She wanted to talk about the, the, the _thing_ , the Coach thing,” Casey says. “And she kept trying to give me all these _pamphlets_ , David! And asking all these questions about how I feel, and how _you_ feel, and then she told me I should wear something _nice_ to dinner. She even knew about _dinner_ , David!”

“Coach probably told her,” David points out. “But what does it matter? People go to Breadstix in stained, smelly clothes, even.”

“If she wanted somebody who looked _nice_ , she should have found some other kid,” Casey says, crossing his arms. 

“Dad didn’t say to dress any particular way. I’m not even changing.” David shrugs. “Don’t see why you need to, either.”

“Why do they care how I look, anyway? They don’t care about anything else,” Casey says. 

David shrugs. “Maybe… nah, I don’t know. Just ignore her, I guess?”

“I’m wearing my sackcloth.” Casey frowns. “Burlap. Back to the whole thing about wearing your cast-offs. A… a… _hair shirt_ , like in that book!”

“I think they’re the ones that are supposed to be doing penance, not you.” David looks puzzled. 

“I don’t know who’s supposed to be doing anything,” Casey sighs. “Except I’m supposed to… well, I’m not changing either, then. If they want a nicely–dressed kid, they can find a different one or make one of their own.”

David laughs again. “C’mon. We’ll go convince Dad that we should get there early. Isn’t that one of those things, that if you’re there first, you have more power or something?”

“Oh, yes. That’s us. More, um. More power. Go us!” 

Casey follows David downstairs, where they—and _they_ in this case being just David, since Casey doesn’t really have anything much to say to Paul at the moment—convince Paul they should go ahead and go. Getting there early doesn’t make Casey feel any more powerful, though. It’s more like fifteen minutes of awkward waiting, while Paul keeps drinking iced tea, four or five refills of it, and the actual breadsticks are so bad that David doesn’t even try to get Casey to eat one. David stacks a bunch of them up like Lincoln Logs into a fairly impressive structure, considering the materials, and Casey balances four of them with their ends together in a point, like a teepee. They’re building an intricate fence, which involves snapping the breadsticks into various lengths, when Coach Beiste and her husband arrive.

“Hello David, Casey,” Coach Beiste says to the two of them. “David, you remember Monty.” She waits for the two of them to shake hands. “And Casey, this is my husband, Monty Desmond.”

Monty Desmond is about how David described him, a ‘short quasi-British guy with a hat’. He has a friendly face and a nice handshake, and Casey decides immediately that he’s going to hate Monty with a fiery passion, because otherwise it would be too easy to like him and not be mad at him about all of this. 

“It’s very nice to finally meet you, Casey!” this Monty person says. Casey doesn’t really have anything to say to that, because not only does he have the newly–developed hatred, the circumstances aren’t exactly the kind that make for an enthusiastic meet–and–greet. 

 

Dave wonders if someone actually paid the server to take double the usual length of time to bring their food, because it’s been at least twenty minutes since the five of them ordered, and all they have on the table is the world’s worst breadsticks and pop and ice water. Oh, and Paul’s iced tea. 

The conversation is really stilted, focusing on strange topics: why there isn’t a direct interstate connection between Fort Wayne and either Lima, Toledo, or even Dayton; if pet breeders should be licensed, and if so, how; and the best way to get frequent flyer miles, even though Paul and Monty are the only two who have ever flown. 

Finally, the server approaches and gives them all their food, along with refilling their drinks, and Dave sort of hopes that they can avoid having to discuss anything for a few minutes. 

“So, Casey,” Monty begins, and Dave sighs to himself as he stabs at a meatball. So much for silence. “Do you sing or play any instruments.”

Casey doesn’t look up from his bowl of pasta, where he’s twirling noodles around his fork. “No.”

“Shannon mentioned she had talked to you about swimming. Do you like swimming?”

Casey keeps twirling noodles onto his already overloaded fork and shrugs.

Monty keeps on persevering, though, and Dave has the wildly inappropriate thought that maybe Coach Beiste likes to lecture about perseverance at home, too, or at the very least, practice for lecturing the team the next day. “Well, are you in any clubs at school? Yearbook? Newspaper?”

“No.”

Dave notices his dad talking quietly to Coach, while Monty continues to bombard Casey with questions, and Casey continues to either reply with a simple ‘no’ or just shrug in lieu of a reply. Dave’s pretty sure that Casey’s not actually eating, either, but he remembers what Coach mentioned, so he doesn’t say anything. He does raise his eyebrows and gesture towards Casey’s plate once, when Casey half–looks up, but Casey just pushes the pasta around his bowl and starts over with the noodle twirling. 

“Goodness, Casey,” Monty says, sounding patient and slightly amused. “I believe I’ve run out of questions. Tell me one thing that you _do_.”

Casey actually looks up from his past bowl and gives Monty a scornful look. “I make coffee.”

“See?” Monty beams. “Now we have a starting point! I _drink_ coffee.” The corner of Casey’s mouth twitches once before he looks back down at his pasta, and Monty says, “Now, tell me, hmm. Tell me one movie that you like!”

“Budget over a hundred thousand, Case,” Dave says under his breath to Casey, and Casey giggles once before recomposing his face into the scowl he’s had all night. 

“ _Driving Miss Daisy_ ,” Casey answers.

“Really?” Monty looks like he can’t decide if he’s thrilled or surprised. “I didn’t realize that was a movie teenage boys watched!”

“I watched it with three football players,” Casey says, too casually. “But only one of them was straight, so maybe that doesn’t count.”

The amused expression returns to Monty’s face. “I think that still counts,” he says. “Now we’re actually getting somewhere! Tell me a book that you like.”

“ _Anansi Boys_ by Neil Gaiman,” Casey says, which seems to make Monty even more thrilled.

“Have you read _Good Omens_?” Monty asks, looking absolutely delighted, and Casey nods. “I’m a tremendous fan of Terry Pratchett. Wonderful book! You’ve heard the BBC is making a miniseries?”

Casey gives up on pretending that he’s not interested in the conversation. “I’ve heard it, but I won’t believe it until I see actual stills from filming,” he says. “They kept promising something for _American Gods_ too, and _that_ never happened, and I don’t know how many studios turned down _Sandman_ , which is just, well, it’s _absurd_ , is what it is!”

“Agreed!” Monty declares. “Official press release, at the very least, or some other sort of promotional material!”

From that point on, Casey doesn’t eat another bite – if he ate anything at all, which Dave isn’t sure about one way or the other. He does keep up a fast conversation with Monty about the two authors of _Good Omens_ and all their other works and which of the books Casey has, and which ones Monty has. Coach Beiste and Paul keep up their quiet conversation, too, and by the time they’re paying the ticket and heading out of the restaurant, Dave doesn’t feel any less angry about everything. He does wonder why they were supposed to have dinner, because it wasn’t like anything of actual importance was discussed, unless Paul and Coach Beiste did all of that by themselves. 

 

David clicks his lamp off and lies back down beside Casey, both of them still on top of the covers. The conversation has been light, almost silly, since they came upstairs. They’ve discussed how many glasses of tea Paul drank, and how it’s a miracle he didn’t have to get up to go to the restroom about fifty more times than he did, and how if they’d only had more breadsticks, they could have finished their little bread–village. With the lights out, though, it’s hard to keep up the pretenses and the conversation stops after a moment or two.

“So,” Casey finally says. “Monty is just as short as you said he was. I thought, maybe. You’re so _not_ short, it’s hard for you to tell, sometimes. But he was just that short.”

“I did try to warn you,” David laughs. “Different hat this time, though.”

“If he hadn’t talked, I would have been sure he was British,” Casey says. 

“Told you, quasi-British.” David shakes his head. “Not sure what the point was, though.”

Casey sighs. “To pretend we think it’s a great idea, I think. I think they want us to act happy so they don’t feel bad about what they’re doing. Well, maybe _Coach Beiste_ wants that, anyway. I think Monty might just want somebody to watch BBC America with him.”

“Well, they need to make their minds up.” David sounds almost angry. “Either we’re stupid kids and therefore we shouldn’t have any input, or we have the right to have some input and they should actually listen. Right now it’s that we have the right to say our opinion but they won’t listen.” 

“I didn’t ever really think they would listen,” Casey says, sadly. “Once they decided, that was it. There wasn’t anything we could do. They don’t really care what we think. Why would they care what I think?”

“Then they shouldn’t have pretended, is all I mean.” David sighs heavily. 

“They shouldn’t have,” Casey agrees. “Everything was going to be fine here, even when you went. I always knew you were going to go. I _knew_ that. They keep acting like it surprised me. I wasn’t surprised. I knew.”

“I think maybe it surprised all of them. Or snuck up on them.”

“I _hate_ them,” Casey says, suddenly. He can’t help it; it just comes out. “I hate them so much.”

David just nods a little, not saying anything for a long time. “I think,” he says finally, “that’s somewhat justifiable.”

“I just wanted to stay until you had to leave,” Casey says, and he moves closer to David, resting his head on David’s shoulder. “They wouldn’t even let me do that. It’s only a few more weeks. I don’t know why I can’t stay just a few more weeks.”

“I don’t know, either,” David sighs. “I really don’t know at all.”

David wraps his arms around Casey and pulls him closer, so Casey’s head is on David’s chest. Casey holds tightly to the front of David’s shirt and leans against him, closing his eyes. They lie there quietly, just holding on to each other, and David’s breathing still hasn’t slowed to indicate sleep before Casey drifts off.


	3. The Brown Epoch Starts Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of an era, the beginnning of an Epoch.

“Well,” Rick says, sinking back down onto the grass. “I don’t know if I’m ashamed of myself or just real impressed with Kurt, to be honest with you.”

Alicia sits down next to him. “Does make you wonder why he didn’t stay on the team, just a bit, doesn’t it?” She pats Rick’s shoulder. “But it was close, Daniel.”

Rick puts his arm around Alicia, because bless her heart, she wasn’t in that locker room at the beginning of the year, or she’d know why. She’s sweet and it’s kinda nice how she doesn’t understand that stuff. It just means she’s a better person than a whole lot of other people. 

“Not close enough,” Rick says. “Guess if I’m gonna lose, though, that’s the way to do it. It’s a story, at least! I can tell folks, let me tell you about the time I got out-kicked by the gayest dude I ever met, and how it was pretty durn cool.”

Alicia giggles. “Yeah, I guess so. You want to go play with Artie’s letters now?”

“I think I only get to play with the one of them, Alicia, but yeah, we can do the letters.”

“Then we’ll get my brother to bring us up to speed like he said he would.”

Rick stands up and holds out a hand to pull Alicia to her feet, then with his arm around her waist, the two of them walk over in the direction of the letter table. 

 

“Well, aren’t you two adorable?” Miles rolls his eyes at Alicia and Rick, walking around the football field like it’s the damn tunnel of love. 

“Nah, Alicia’s adorable,” Rick says. “My mama says that _I’ve_ got a face for radio.”

“Now, Daniel, you know that’s not true,” Alicia says, and Miles has to fight not to roll his eyes again, because he’s pretty sure Rick’s mom is right. 

“Too bad you lost, Foots.” Miles snorts. “Guess your nickname didn’t help too much.”

“If I’m gonna lose to somebody, I reckon there aren’t many people who’d be better to lose to than Kurt,” Rick says, all matter–of–factly. “He seems like he’s real good at winning, so I don’t feel too bad about it.”

“I suppose he does get his way most of the time,” Miles concedes. “I don’t know that I’d be so proud about losing if I were you, but then, I wouldn’t ever be you, Foots, so I guess just keep on being however you need to be.”

“Alicia,” Rick says, turning to her with a puzzled look on his face. “Is Brown being nice or is he being mean? I can’t tell.”

“Nobody can,” Alicia says dryly. “He thinks he’s so clever that he just talks himself in circles.”

“Oh, I’m clever. I’m too clever for you to be able to appreciate it, is all.” Miles gives Alicia the Superior Brown smile, complete with eyebrow, but she responds by rolling her eyes. 

“Did you already go over there?” Alicia asks, gesturing towards the set-up Artie mentioned. “Or are you too clever to figure that out?”

“No I haven’t gone yet, yes I’m gonna, and yes, I’ve already got it all figured out. Such a sweet sister, being worried about me like that,” Miles says. 

“That’s me, Sister of the Year,” Alicia says, sounding all fake and sweet at the same time in the way that Cheerios, and only Cheerios, do.

“It’s amazing your feet ever touch the ground, you being carried around by those flights of angels,” Miles snorts. 

“I know.” Alicia shrugs and grins. “Oh, after you left this morning, Ma wanted to know if you were going to Dayton tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah,” Miles says, flashing a broad grin at Alicia. “Leaving early, staying late. Don’t know that it’s gonna be all that much, but hey, even Pride in Dayton’s better than nothing. Bet I’ll make all kind of new friends.”

Alicia rolls her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure. I bet you’ll come home with a whole Facebook full of them!”

“They aren’t the kind of friend you add on Facebook, Alicia,” Miles says, shaking his head. “Honestly.”

“I’ll conveniently forget that part when I talk to Ma, then.” Alicia shakes her head. “Lunch after this, Miles?”

“Sure, sure. I’ll ask Cherry and Mopey if they wanna join us.”

Alicia turns to Rick and smirks. “Would it surprise you, Daniel, if I told you that my brother’s favorite Disney movie is _Snow White_?”

Rick’s face slides into the same old confused look. “Uh, probably.”

“Alicia, you’re just gonna confuse the boy. Everybody knows my favorite Disney movie is _[Oliver& Company](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb7kJ-j_dKA)_!” Miles shakes his head again. “I swear.”

 

Taylor walks away from Artie’s table and exchanges a fistbump with Tim. “That’s definitely your letter, dude,” Tim laughs, and Taylor just grins, because he didn’t really expect people to be able to joke with him about it, not so soon and maybe not ever. 

“Hey, Rickenbacker!” Tucker yells as Rick and Alicia walk in their direction. “Maybe you need to find a new position to play!”

“You wish, Sawicki!” Rick shouts back. “Like to see _you_ try’n out-kick him! He’s like one of them whatchacall’ems!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tucker laughs, and he looks at Taylor, who shrugs. 

“No clue,” Taylor admits. 

“They were just all at Radio City Music Hall,” Alicia says. “Santana said that they used the same rehearsal room as the real Rockettes.”

“Ohhh. Rockettes.” Taylor grins. “I like the Rockettes.”

“Yeah, I like ’em too,” Rick says, grinning back. “They can kick high.”

Alicia huffs. “Boys. I swear. Changing the subject.” She glares at Taylor, but Taylor’s pretty sure her heart’s not _really_ in it. “You three want to come to lunch with us? And Miles. Maybe Casey and Dave.”

Tim snickers. “Maybe you should ask some of your Cheerio friends, too.”

“Yeah, Alicia,” Taylor laughs. “You’re the only girl. Not fair for the straight guys.”

“I could go talk to Santana and Brittany!” Alicia says brightly. 

“ _Straight_ girls. Straight, single girls,” Tucker protests. “What good is it being friends with the head cheerleader when she won’t help you out?”

“I dunno, man,” Rick says, shaking his head. “I think Casey’s sort of afraid of girls, other than Alicia and Brittany. He might not be able to eat with too many girls there. I think maybe only my girl gets to go.”

“Next week, Alicia,” Tim says seriously. “Next week, you’re inviting your friends to go swimming at the pool, and you’re going to call Taylor and tell him what time we need to show up.”

Taylor laughs. “Yeah, that sounds fair, Alicia. We’ll go to lunch without any other girls if we can go swimming next week.” He grins. 

“You’re a hound dog,” Rick says, shaking his head. “Shame on you, Taylor.”

“You can come, too, Rick,” Taylor says. “I’m sure Alicia’s got a nice new swimsuit she can show you.”

“Everything Alicia has is nice and she looks nice in all of it,” Rick says, seriously. 

“Uh-huh,” Tim says disbelievingly. “Taylor, are you sure Rickenbacker didn’t hit his head harder than you thought? He’s practically comparing a skisuit and a swimsuit!”

“Alicia looks better in a skisuit than any other girl looks in a swimsuit,” Rick insists. “Don’t be jealous that I got the prettiest one.” 

“I don’t even own a skisuit, Daniel!” Alicia says, sounding exasperatedly pleased. “Let’s go get my brother and go eat, before he decides we’re all eating at Taco Bell.”

“I like Taco Bell,” Tucker frowns. 

“I do too, but I want something a little classier on the last day of school,” Alicia explains.

“Karofsky won’t eat at Taco Bell anyway,” Rick says. “Maybe he’s got an allergy or something, but Brown wanted us to all go there one time, and Karofsky really, really didn’t want to. Maybe it was just ’cause Brown said it, though.”

“Oh, good. Still.” Alicia starts to walk away, and Taylor looks at Tucker before they shrug and start to follow her. There’s always Joey’s. They bring the food to the table after you order it; surely that’s classier. 

 

“But that’s not lunch,” Miles insists. “That’s dessert.”

David shrugs. “You did ask, Brown.”

“Milkshakes are _like_ lunch,” Casey says. It’s true. They are very much like lunch, even if he can’t quite get David to agree with that. 

“If you say so, Cherry,” Miles says dubiously. “But first we have to figure out how to get all these people that can’t drive to wherever we’re going.”

“We can put them under a tarp,” Casey suggests. “In the back of David’s truck. They can all lie down and we can put a tarp over them.”

“We’re high school students, not serial killers!” Miles laughs. He looks across the field at Alicia, Rick, Taylor, and Taylor’s friends. “I guess I’ll take Foots and my sister if you two can take Taylor and his friends.”

David nods. “Yeah, we can do that.” 

“Why do milkshakes mean we’re serial killers?” Casey whispers to David. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I _think_ he meant the tarp. And people in the truck bed,” David returns quietly. 

“But if they sat up in the back of the truck, you might get a ticket,” Casey says. “You’d have to cover them up with something.”

“Damn, Cherry, they’d fry under a tarp this time of year.” Miles makes a big show of wiping sweat from his forehead. “I mean, I understand making Foots a little uncomfortable, and I appreciate you backing me up there, but we should probably let my sister ride in air conditioning.”

“Alicia could ride in the back seat. Rick and you, too. That fills up all the seats, though.” Casey frowns. It’s not that he doesn’t like Taylor’s friends, but today is a bad day for lots of talk about girls and all their _girl parts_. “Maybe we’ll just take Rick and Alicia and you can drive Taylor and his friends.”

Miles gives Casey an odd look, then shrugs. “Well, I guess they’d all fit in my backseat. Freshmen.” Which is probably meant to mean that they’re small, but Taylor and the one guy are about the same size as Casey, and the one who plays football is bigger. 

“I guess it doesn’t really matter either way,” Casey says. “Whatever everybody wants to do is fine.”

“Nah, it’s whatever _I_ want to do. You see any other rising seniors here?” Miles grins and turns towards the others. “Hurry it up, Alicia! There’s milkshakes with our names on ’em just waiting!”

 

Alicia takes her seat at the Dairy King again with a tiny sigh. For all of Taylor’s protests, he and his two ‘bros’ seem to be having a fine time, and Daniel was right about Casey, especially today. He and Dave look so sad, and Alicia thinks again that it’s just not fair, not when Dave should be excited about graduating and Casey should be looking forward to what will be his first enjoyable summer, or at least that’s what she’s gathered from Miles. 

“Did you get lost, Alicia?” Taylor looks up and smirks at her.

“I swear, there’s always a longer line.” Alicia rolls her eyes. “But the food didn’t come while I was gone, at least.”

“Nah, it did!” Tim laughs. “We ate it all already. Including yours.”

Alicia huffs but grins in spite of herself. “You did not. Daniel would have at least saved my French fries for me. Right, Daniel?”

“I’d never let them eat your food, Alicia,” Daniel says, staunchly. “I wouldn’t even eat your food myself, not even if I was starving.”

“Oh, good lord,” Miles sighs, burying his face in his hands. Casey giggles at him and makes a big show of stirring his milkshake with his straw, even though he doesn’t actually drink any of it. 

“Why thank you, Daniel,” Alicia beams at him, and then shoots a glare at Miles before leaning over to give Daniel a kiss. “Such a gentleman.”

“He’s either a real gentleman or real whipped,” she can hear Tim snigger to Tucker under his breath, so she glares at both of them, too, just for a moment. 

“What flavor did everyone get?” she asks when the silence goes on just a beat too long. 

“Double chocolate,” Taylor answers first. 

“Turtle,” Tim and Tucker say at the same time. 

“Cookie dough,” Daniel says. “Like last time.”

Miles looks over at Casey out of the corner of his eye and says, “Chocolate cherry.”

“Mine’s butterscotch. Also, banana. Mixed together.” Casey pokes his straw into his milkshake again. 

Dave shrugs as they look at him. “Vanilla.”

Miles looks like he’s having the hardest time ever keeping his mouth shut, and clearly he has some opinion on the matter that he thinks they’d all want to know about, but thankfully he manages not to share it.

“You come here and still get vanilla?” Tucker says incredulously. 

“There is _nothing_ wrong with vanilla,” Casey says, fiercely, narrowing his eyes. “Not everybody needs their milkshakes to be exciting.”

“Hey,” Tucker says quickly, holding up his hands, “didn’t mean anything by it.”

Casey’s glare intensifies and he stabs his milkshake with his straw, moving infinitesimally closer to Dave. “It’s fine,” Dave says, but it’s like there’s no energy in him or his voice. “It’s fine,” he repeats, a little louder, this time directed solely at Casey. 

Casey seems to wilt, the glare disappearing almost instantly. His voice sounds tired and resigned when he says, “Yeah, okay. It’s fine,” with a slight nod. 

Alicia can’t help but think that it’s too bad Miles didn’t think to fill the other boys in on what’s happening with Casey and Dave, though maybe Miles thought that they’d all be in better moods and have more fun at lunch if a few people were still unaware of any issues at all. Still, Miles manages to get the conversation flowing again, and if there’s one thing her brother’s good at, it’s putting people more or less at ease. The food arrives for everyone except Casey, who just nibbles at one of Dave’s fries, and when they’re done, they divide up again. This time, Dave and Casey are going to drop off Rick and Tucker, and she and Miles will take the other two home, so she gives Rick a quick kiss before climbing into the passenger seat of Miles’ car. 

They haven’t driven far when Tim frowns. “So, like. If Casey’s got an ED, why’d we go to a restaurant where he didn’t like the food?”

“What are you talking about?” Miles asks, just barely glancing back at Tim. 

“It’s okay, I mean, I know people don’t talk about it, but my cousin’s got anorexia, too, so.” Tim shrugs. “When we get together for family stuff, usually we try to go someplace she likes more of the food, is all.”

“Which cousin?” Taylor says, then shakes his head. “Sorry. Later.”

“You mean ED like eating disorder?” Alicia asks, turning in her seat. 

“Right, ED’s the umbrella term or whatever,” Tim answers her. 

“Wait, you think Casey’s got anorexia?” Alicia frowns. “I don’t know. He never says he thinks he’s fat or anything, Tim, and anyway. That’s. Girls get anorexia. Coach made us listen to a lecture about both it and bulimia, and the guys on the squad got a talk about steroid use.” She looks at Miles, because maybe he can convince Tim that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

“There is nothing wrong with that boy,” Miles says, firmly. “Nothing that wouldn’t be fixed by people not messing with his life. All of you better stick to talking about stuff that’s your own business, and this ain’t it.”

“Okay, okay,” Tim sits back in his seat with a quiet huff, and stays quiet until they pull up in front of his house. “Remember, Alicia,” he says as he gets out. “You. Your friends. Us. Pool next week.”

Alicia laughs. “I remember, you ridiculous boy. Have a good weekend!”

“You too! ’Bye, guys!” With that, Tim slams the door shut and heads up to his door, shaking out his keys. 

“We’re required to be ridiculous,” Taylor says. “Otherwise, what good is being friends with the head cheerleader?”

“Isn’t my presence enough?” Alicia smirks. “Tell him, Miles. It’s the privilege of being around a Brown.”

“Huh?” Miles responds. “Oh. Yeah. Privilege. All of you are lucky to be around us.” Miles sounds half-hearted about the whole thing, but Alicia nods and turns around in her seat again. 

“See, Taylor? Just be glad you’re around to witness—what was it Kurt said?—the Brown Epoch. The Brown Epoch starts now.”


	4. 3x35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memorial Day; Posting the glist; Individual wisdom; The Year in Song (and a month Schue should have skipped); Finals; Awards night; PFLAG farewell; Graduation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full circle. We never knew things would become so large in scope. For the past year, writing this story and posting it has kept us sane. It's cheaper than therapy and at the end of it, there's a finished project. No, their stories aren't finished, but this 'season' is. The pace will change and the format will change. To all of you who read, to every person who has commented, it's been a privilege. Thank you.
> 
> <3 Patch & Rav
> 
>  
> 
> [Playlist for 3x35 "In Medias Res"](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF77B70CCCF0CB0C)

Puck blinks in the pre-dawn greyness. It’s not exactly late, but he knows this color, and shouldn’t he be at work right now? He mentally reviews the days in his head – yesterday was Sunday, the day before was Saturday, and that makes today Monday, and he definitely works on Mondays. So why didn’t he set his alarm?

Oh. Right. Apparently seniority has a few perks, namely that Ms. Horatio gave him Memorial Day and the Fourth of July both off, and today is Memorial Day. He shifts a little and notes that Finn’s already gone back to his room; that could be why he woke up, or it could just be his stupid body, so used to making coffee in the mornings. The other perk of seniority is that she wants to know what days he wants off, because that way he can swap as many shifts as possible and still keep forty hours of work. Yeah, technically he has a week of vacation days, but there’s no telling how agreeable or flexible his manager in New York will be, so he’d rather keep those for the second half of the year. 

Now that he’s had a slight panic about oversleeping, though, and run through the days in his head, Puck realizes he’s not going to fall back asleep that easily, at least not for a few minutes yet. In a week, they’re going to be done. High school graduates. In a week, he’s going to see Beth for the first time since she was two days old. In a week, he’s going to be working forty hours a week again, not doing any schoolwork, not driving out to OSU-Lima three days a week. In a week, summer’s going to begin, even if people try to say summer starts on Memorial Day. 

Which means the Memorial Day picnic for St. Rita’s, that Carole’s taking all of them to, over at Faurot Park, complete with, apparently, lots of food and games and what Kurt called “ridiculous music playlists piped in through speakers that make all the songs tinny.” They don’t have to be there until close to noon, though, if Puck remembers right, which means he definitely doesn’t have to get up anytime soon. 

His brain’s forgotten that, though, deciding to alternate between reviewing the weekend so far and thinking about the next Monday. Puck has to admit that Sunday had been boring; work, studying for the physics final, dinner with Rina and Hannah, and then helping Kurt study for his consumer math final before Kurt insisted that Puck study for his English final. Saturday was at least a little more interesting; breakfast at Waffle House, on the theory that they should eat at Waffle House as much as possible before August, and then Kurt dragged Puck and Finn both with him over to Columbus to do some shopping and lunch in the food court. After they got back to Lima, they ate dinner at Old Barn—same theory as Waffle House—and then went to see both _Dark Shadows_ , which was hilarious, and _Men in Black III_ , which was also hilarious, and by the time they grabbed a snack on the way home, Carole and Burt were completely asleep.

Nights that Carole and Burt go to bed well ahead of the three of them even arriving at the house are the best nights. 

But now it’s Monday, and a Monday that will be spent mostly either studying for the physics final the next morning or in Carole and Burt’s presence or even both, and even though it’s a day off, Puck suddenly feels pretty tired. He pulls Kurt closer to him and rests his chin on Kurt’s head. Even at the end of May, Kurt’s still burrowing under the covers during the chilliest part of the night. 

Shelby’s confirmed their visit the next week; Puck didn’t outright explain who Kurt was, just that he was bringing someone with him. Shelby seems to understand that it’s probably going to be an emotional day for Puck, and she doesn’t have a problem with Kurt accompanying Puck, but Puck guesses she might be a little surprised when she puts it all together. 

And Puck’s pretty sure he couldn’t do it without Kurt. He’s seen so many pictures now, a few videos, and Beth’s even seen pictures of him and heard his voice, and so he can’t fall back on concentrating on how she looks. He’s going to be cataloging how she moves and what she says and her looking at him and there’s no way that Puck’s going to make it through next Monday without Kurt there. 

Puck realizes suddenly that he’s been lying there longer than he thought, because the room has been steadily growing brighter, and when he looks at the clock, over thirty minutes have passed. Puck closes his eyes and tries to fall back asleep, but after a few more minutes he sighs, giving up, and opens them again. He moves just far enough from Kurt to run his finger down Kurt’s nose, and Kurt wrinkles it before his eyes blink open. 

“Hi baby,” Kurt whispers. 

“Hi, blue eyes,” Puck replies, amused. “Good morning.”

“Mmm. Yes. I expected to wake up alone.”

“Memorial Day.” Puck grins. “I was confused, too.”

“Ohh, right.” Kurt yawns a little. “Oh, picnic then.” He deflates a little. “We should be very involved in the organized games or something.”

“What kind of games?”

“Last year there were potato sack races and strange relay races. Oh, and some pick-up games of various sports. This year it’s warm enough that we could actually swim in the lakes.” Kurt shakes his head. “There’s the fountains, anyway.”

“Hmm.” Puck buries his face against Kurt’s neck. “Okay. We’ll all be participators. That means eating plenty of the food, too, right?”

“Definitely,” Kurt agrees, and he pulls back to grin at Puck before kissing him slowly. “Since convincing Dad and Carole to go without us seems to be an impossibility.”

“Yeah.” Puck tightens his arms around Kurt and rolls onto his back, pulling Kurt on top of him. “Does seem to be.”

Kurt giggles. “Trying to tell me something?”

Puck smirks up at him. “Maybe. Are you getting the message?”

Kurt lowers his head and brushes his lips against Puck’s, then kisses Puck again, more pressure this time before his tongue pushes at Puck’s lips until Puck lets his mouth fall open. Kurt’s tongue slips inside, sliding along Puck’s, and Puck moves his hands up and down Kurt’s back and ass. Kurt’s mouth moves from Puck’s after a long time, kissing up Puck’s jaw to nibble on his ear, and Puck chuckles. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Kurt pauses and whispers in Puck’s ear. “Good guess.”

“I’m a good guesser sometimes,” Puck grins. 

“Hmm. Yes.” Kurt nips at Puck’s neck. “You are.” He pulls back and frowns a little. “No, we are. We’re different. Than Finn, I mean. I don’t need the words. You don’t, either. We’ve never seemed to feel like verbal professions were necessary.” 

Puck shakes his head. “No. I don’t.” He shrugs. “It’s not bad. Either way. Just different, like you said.”

“We are good at that,” Kurt says wryly, and then he’s nipping and sucking at Puck’s neck again. Kurt’s hand runs down Puck’s side and then between them, fingertips teasing at Puck’s cock. 

“Very good,” Puck agrees. “We’re very good at a lot of things, actually.” He presses up against Kurt, squeezing Kurt’s ass underneath his hands. 

“I could show you one of those,” Kurt says with a grin. 

Puck laughs. “I think I’d like that.”

“Thought you might,” Kurt tosses back before leaning down and kissing Puck again, a little more forcefully. He moves his lips to Puck’s ear and whispers. “Do you want me inside you, baby?”

“Fuck, yes,” Puck breathes into the side of Kurt’s neck, nodding slightly, and Kurt nips at Puck’s earlobe before kissing a path down Puck’s neck and over his collarbone. 

“Wish I could make you scream,” Kurt says regretfully. “Want you to be so loud.”

Puck grins. “I know, blue eyes.”

Kurt’s fingers continue teasing at Puck’s cock as his mouth sucks and licks all over Puck’s chest, and Puck has to bite down hard on his lip to keep from being exactly as loud as he shouldn’t be. It’s still early enough on a holiday that everyone else is likely asleep, and Puck does _not_ want to be responsible for waking up the cranky pregnant woman _or_ Burt, either one. 

Kurt sits up and nudges Puck onto his side, then picks the bottle of lube up off the bedside table. “Going to fill you up, baby, make you feel so good,” Kurt murmurs, one finger already circling Puck’s entrance. Puck whines and pushes back against Kurt’s finger, and Kurt lets it slide in just barely. “Like that, Puck?”

“Yes. More,” Puck manages, and Kurt slides his finger fully into Puck, pressing against Puck’s prostate lightly. 

“Thought you might,” Kurt says, kissing the back of Puck’s neck. He slides another finger inside, pumping them slowly in and out, and Puck sighs, pressing back against Kurt.

“C’mon, K,” Puck says. “Just get inside me.”

Kurt giggles. “Well, when you ask so nicely, baby.” There’s a moment of emptiness, and Puck frowns and whines as Kurt grabs the lube again, but then Kurt’s pushing inside him again, and Puck relaxes around him. “You feel so good, Puck. So tight around me. Oh god, baby, love being inside you.”

When Kurt’s completely inside, Puck squeezes around him and grins at the intake of breath. “Love having you there,” Puck says. “Right—” He breaks off as Kurt starts to move, then laughs quietly. “Yeah, right there, blue eyes.”

“Mmm, are you sure you should be laughing?” Kurt grabs Puck’s hand and squeezes it before releasing it, his hand going to Puck’s cock and grabbing it loosely. “Maybe I should move a little faster?”

Puck nods, pressing back into Kurt’s thrusts. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah, more, K.”

Kurt moves faster then, driving in harder as his hand tightens on Puck’s cock and moves quickly on it, up and down. Puck bites down on his lip and closes his eyes, his head tilting forward slightly as Kurt kisses his neck and back. He’s trying hard not to make more noise than absolutely necessary, the occasional whimper escaping, and then Kurt starts to whisper in his ear. 

“So tight, so amazing, want to stay in bed all day.” Kurt’s thrusts get almost erratic and then Puck hears him humming, and Puck tightens around Kurt again. “Oh, fuck, baby,” Kurt whispers, then comes hard into Puck. 

Kurt’s hand doesn’t stop moving, and a moment later, Puck comes too, one wrist flung in front of his mouth in a mostly–successful attempt to muffle the sound. After a long moment, Kurt slips out, then wraps his arm around Puck from behind. 

“We should shower,” Puck offers lazily. 

“In a minute,” Kurt agrees. “After I feel like moving again.”

Puck laughs. “That too.”

 

When Finn comes downstairs, Puck is fooling around on the piano and Kurt is looking at something on his iPad. “Hey,” Finn says, a little bummed he can’t kiss them, since, well, downstairs. 

Kurt looks up and smiles. “Morning.”

“Hey,” Puck says, turning around but still playing notes on the piano. 

“You guys been up long?” Finn asks. 

“Hour and a half,” Puck answers. “There’s some bacon hidden on a plate in the refrigerator.”

“Awesome, thanks!” Finn grins, but then his face falls again. “Is she in there? I thought I heard her.”

“In and out,” Kurt says. “She was talking about making a dessert for the picnic.”

“We’re going to be participators,” Puck says solemnly. “Active participators.”

“That’s, uh. Fantastic. Maybe I’ll go in there and pre-emptively participate or something,” Finn sighs. “What’s she making, a cake or something?”

“Banana pudding.” Kurt shrugs. “I suggested peanut butter cookies, but apparently it’s a ‘peanut–free picnic’.”

“I’ll go see if I can, I dunno. Chop up bananas or something, then,” Finn says. “Maybe you two should hide while you can.”

“I think she’d try to find us,” Kurt says dryly. “But thank you.”

“Well, I’ll call you if we need you,” Finn says, and he shoots them another grin before he walks into the kitchen. He lets his smile drop when he’s in there, though. His mom is at the counter, standing a little further away from it than she used to, mixing a bunch of stuff in a bowl. “Hey,” he says.

“Oh, hi, sweetie!” Carole says, smiling at him. “Did you sleep well?”

“Uh, yeah, I slept great,” Finn says, forcing himself to smile back. “Meant to get up earlier, but I guess I forgot to set my alarm again.”

“Well, it’s a holiday, I suppose.” Carole pushes a bunch of bananas towards him. “Can you slice these, please?”

“Sure.” He takes the bananas, peels them, slices them into rounds. “What time is the thing?”

“Oh, it starts at eleven, so I thought we’d all head over just a little bit after that!” Carole smiles. “The picnic’s always so much fun, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, a picnic, alright!” Finn sort of agrees. “Gonna be hot today, huh?”

“I swear, I don’t know what’s going on with the weather.” Carole shakes her head and lifts her hair off her neck. “So hot, and not even June.”

“Climate change,” Finn says, nodding his head seriously. “Melting ice caps and all those polar bear babies just floating around up there in the ocean at the North Pole. It’s sad.”

Carole sniffs slightly. “It is! All those babies.” She sighs. “Maybe we should take a cue from the Amish. Do you think Burt could learn to drive a horse and buggy?”

“Think you’d have a hard time getting him to give up buttons and TV,” Finn says. “Maybe you could go part–Amish or something.”

“I didn’t really want to cook over a wood stove,” Carole sighs. “Maybe so.” 

“Pretzel probably needs stuff like air conditioning, too,” Finn says. “She’s gonna still be a baby when it’s summer again, and you wouldn’t want her to be all sweaty and, that heat thing babies get.” He slides the bananas back over to Carole.

“Good point,” Carole nods, taking the bananas and starting to layer bananas and pudding and wafers in her big glass bowl. “You boys should start making a list of names, like I mentioned before. Can’t start cutting the list down until you make one!”

“My vote’s for Joan Jett Hudson-Hummel,” Finn says, “but I’m still pretty sure Kurt’s gonna want one of those names from the black and white movies. Maybe the lady with the scratchy voice or the Wizard of Oz one.”

“Joan makes me think of Joan Rivers!” Kurt calls from the living room. “You can’t do that to Pretzel!”

“Quit eavesdropping or come name some names,” Finn calls back. “Or I’m gonna just give her a long list of allllll my ideas.”

“Doris Day Hudson-Hummel?” Kurt says, walking into the kitchen and raising an eyebrow.

“Veto!” Finn announces. “I get to veto, right?”

Kurt grins. “Bring it.”

“Oh, consider it brung, dude,” Finn says. “How about… Roxanne? Roxanne Hudson-Hummel.”

“Veto!”

“She has a _tango_ , Kurt!”

“Maureen. She does, too.”

“Veto,” Finn says. “Makes me think of cows. I think… Starla.”

“No! Veto!” Kurt makes a face. “Is that even a real name?”

“It should be,” Finn says. “It really should be. Ok, you come up with one, then.”

“Vivian.”

“Sounds snobby. Who’s that lady with the scratchy voice? From your old movies. I think she’s in the one with the boat.”

“Katherine?” Kurt does his head–tilting thing. “It’d get shortened to Kathy or Katie.”

“Maybe… Tiffany? Like that movie you love.”

“Veto.” Kurt stops. “Audrey?”

Finn starts to make a face and say veto, because he’s kinda into the vetoes at this point, but honestly, he sorta likes it. “Acceptable,” he says, after a few seconds. “It can go on the list, but only if Joan Jett goes on there, too.”

Kurt just looks at him, eyebrows raised, and doesn’t say a word. 

“I guess Joan Jett doesn’t really have to go on the list,” Finn says, casually, like it’s totally his own idea. 

“No,” Kurt agrees calmly. “It doesn’t.”

“I didn’t think so,” Finn says, and mouths “bossofme” at Kurt as soon as he’s sure his mom’s back is turned. 

Kurt smirks slightly and raises his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s a good name. No nicknames to speak of. Doesn’t have any horrible rhymes.”

“Any name can have a nickname if you try hard enough,” Finn says. 

“No _obvious_ nicknames.”

“Neither does ‘Kurt’ but I bet I could come up with some good ones,” Finn says, and then he clamps his hand over his mouth, because he didn’t actually mean to say that outloud. Luckily, his mom’s still dumping stuff into the bowl over at the counter and didn’t seem to pay any more attention to that than she did to any of the other stuff about the names.

Kurt’s smirk gets wider, and he looks like he wants to say something himself, but he obviously stops himself. “I still stand by my statement that it’s a good choice.”

“Yeah, it’s nice. Did you hear Kurt’s name?” Finn says, a little louder. 

Carole looks up from her layering job. “Audrey, did you say?”

“Yes,” Kurt answers. “Audrey.”

“Hmm, it does sound very classic,” Carole says, smiling slightly. “Audrey Hudson-Hummel.”

“Yeah, it’s nice. Very classy,” Finn says. “Joan-Jett would make a good _middle_ name, though.”

“We can’t hyphenate everything,” Kurt says. “Joan-Jett is a bit of a mouthful.”

When Carole turns away again, Finn mouths back, “You’re a bit of a mouthful.”

Kurt narrows his eyes and crosses to the refrigerator, hissing in Finn’s ear as he passes. “A _bit_?”

“Big mouth,” Finn whispers back.

“What was that, honey?” Carole asks. “Did you have another idea for a middle name?”

“Nope. I just said I have a big mouth. Just, you know, saying any ideas that come to me, even when they’re ‘Joan-Jett’, I mean.”

“I suppose we should just be glad you didn’t pick a different musician,” Kurt says with a grin. “I’m not sure that ‘Journey’ works as a name.”

“You take it back!” Finn says. “I’m totally naming my first kid that!”

“I’m supposed to tell people, yes, this is my niece Journey!” Kurt shakes his head. “That’s horrible to do to me, Finn.”

“No, dude. Journey if it’s a boy. _Journetta_ for a girl.”

“Oh, well then.” Kurt snorts, and from the living room, Finn can hear Puck start to play ‘Any Way You Want It’. 

 

Somehow, Puck thinks he wouldn’t want to need St. Rita’s on Memorial Day, because it looks like all of the workers are at Faurot Park instead of nursing or doctoring or whatever else they do there. 

There’s a lot of food, though, and plenty of chances to leave Carole to her own devices, so after they stand around for about ten minutes, Puck announces he’s hungry. “Let’s go get some food.”

“Oh, I always wait for other people to get theirs,” Carole says. “I’d hate to look too greedy.”

“Don’t care if I look greedy,” Finn says. “I’m starving.”

“Exactly,” Puck nods. He puts an arm around Kurt’s shoulders and steers him towards the food, nodding towards it as he looks at Finn. 

“I just want something to drink,” Kurt says as they walk towards the massive buffet line. 

“Hey, good thing we’re here, though,” Finn says. “If we have a heat stroke, it’s, like, best place to be.”

“It’s the people who _aren’t_ here who might need to worry,” Puck agrees. 

“Not our fault they don’t get to come to the picnic,” Finn says, shaking his head. 

Kurt laughs. “No, I suppose not.” 

There’s an enormous amount of food, so much that Puck figures everyone there could be greedy and there’d still be leftovers, so the three of them pile their plates pretty full before trying to find three free seats at one of the picnic tables. They finally squeeze into a table with a bunch of what Puck is pretty sure are doctors, and maybe plastic surgeons or something at that. 

“They should have made the plates bigger,” Kurt says. “Except then it’d be hard to fit them all on the table, but.”

“But then we wouldn’t have to make two trips,” Finn finishes. 

“Making two trips is important?” Kurt asks. 

“Maybe it’s some kind of hospital health thing. You have to keep walking up there to get more food, so it’s exercise with your meal,” Finn explains. “I’d rather have a big plate.”

“It’s a trick,” Kurt says darkly. “It’s an attempt to keep their costs down.”

Something knocks into the back of Puck’s head, and a woman’s voice says, “Oh, I am so sorry!”

Puck half–turns towards the voice. “S’fine,” he says, then stops, looking closely at her, because she looks familiar, and not just from coming into buy coffee.

The woman seems to be thinking the same thing, because she peers at the three of them for a moment, before settling on Kurt, and saying, “Oh! I recognize you boys! You’re Carole Hudson’s boys.”

Puck thinks that’s a pretty ironic way to put it, actually, but he nods a little, as does Kurt. Finn says, “Yeah, that’s my mom.”

“I’m Janis,” the woman explains. “I work in the E.R. I was there when your little friend was brought in. Is he doing better now?”

Puck nods again, because yeah, anything’s better than how Casey _was_ that day. “He is,” Kurt answers her. “Thankfully.”

“And _his_ friend?” Janis asks, gently. “The big one who came in with him?”

Finn frowns and pokes at some food on his plate. “Yeah, he’s ok.”

“They’re both doing okay,” Kurt agrees. “Not necessarily easy, but okay.”

Janis nods. “No, I wouldn’t imagine it would be easy, but I’m glad they’re both okay. Such a sad set of circumstances.”

And the thing is, Janis has absolutely no idea, really, and still sees some of the truth, which is depressing in its own way. It’s all like Finn says sometimes, a fuck shit stack. Some people, Puck figures, just shouldn’t be parents. Not that it would have changed everything if Casey’d had better parents, but it would have changed something. 

“Well,” Janis says, after a moment. “I hope the three of you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for giving me an update on your friends. I’m glad to hear they’re doing better now, at least. You boys say hello to Carole for me, too,” she adds, before walking off in the other direction.

“And here I thought the only people I’d recognize would expect espresso,” Puck says, shaking his head. 

Finn is still frowning at his plate. After a while, he says, “Fuck it. I’m looking for dessert.”

“Not a bad plan,” Puck agrees. “Just don’t expect anything with nuts.”

“So sexist,” Finn says, shaking his head. 

Kurt lowers his voice and arches an eyebrow. “You need _more_ , darling?”

“Haven’t had _any_ today,” Finn answers, shaking his head again, this time much more sadly. 

“That depends on how you define ‘today’,” Puck argues. “If you’re counting just from ‘after midnight’ then…”

“Day starts when I wake up,” Finn says. “Otherwise it’s still the day before, if I haven’t slept yet. So none today.”

“We’ll have to try to remedy that later,” Puck says with a smirk. 

“But right now I’m gonna drown my sorrows in banana pudding and cake,” Finn says. “This world is shit sometimes.” Finn stands up and walks over to the dessert table, coming back with a plate full of various desserts. Without being asked, he scoots the slice of chocolate cake from his plate onto Puck’s.

Kurt eyes Finn’s plate of desserts speculatively, taking a drink of his pop with his eyes still on the plate. “What’s for me?” he asks finally.

Finn brings a napkin up to table level and unfolds it, revealing a large Rice Krispies treat. “I can’t think of anybody who likes these,” Finn says, “so I guess you _could_ have it, if you wanted it.”

“I could?” Kurt repeats. “And if no one likes them, why did you get it?”

“They were pretty,” Finn says, shrugging. “If you don’t want it, I guess I could just eat it.”

Kurt stretches out his hand and just raises an eyebrow. “Finn, darling.”

“Oh, you did want it?” 

“Mmmhmmm.”

Finn grins widely at Kurt. “You want to come get it?”

“Oh, I thought we were trying to get through the day without being arrested,” Kurt says, managing to sound innocent.

“Speak for yourself,” Finn says. He breaks off a piece of Rice Krispie treat and holds it out. “You want this?”

“I am _not_ a trained seal, Finn Hudson.”

“Fine,” Finn says, popping the piece of Rice Krispie treat into his own mouth. “No fun at all,” he adds, placing the rest of the square into Kurt’s hand. 

“Funny, you didn’t seem to think that previously,” Kurt says pointedly. 

“No fun _today_ ,” Finn clarifies. 

“The day isn’t over yet. But if you don’t want me to be any fun.” Kurt shrugs. 

“I want you to be all the fun,” Finn says. 

“Then perhaps you should behave?” Kurt suggests sweetly. 

“I can behave!” Finn says quickly. He gives Kurt a big, cheesy grin. “See? So behaved!”

Puck snorts, and Kurt shakes his head. “Oh, yes, so well-behaved. Let’s take your well-behaved self and be active participants.”

“I cut up bananas!” Finn says. “I totally participated!”

“Games, darling. Games to avoid being pulled into conversations about how we must be so excited and aren’t our parents proud and oh, can you believe that little Finny Hudson is all grown up?” 

“Don’t call me Finny.”

“You know they would,” Kurt sing-songs. 

“I can carry you out of here, you know,” Finn warns. 

“You could,” Kurt agrees. “But you won’t. Because you’re secretly dying to win the potato sack race.”

“Those sacks are never big enough,” Finn says. “It’s not fair.”

“Tie a jump rope to each corner and hold onto that,” Puck suggests. “It’s not like any of the jump ropes are long enough for you, either.”

“I’m too giant for living,” Finn sighs. “The world is uncool.”

“Haven’t we discussed this? Tallism?” Puck asks. “It’s not you, it’s them.”

“It is them. All those short people and their short sacks and short jump ropes,” Finn grumbles. 

“Mmm,” Kurt nods. “But they’re just missing out.” 

“On tall sacks and long jump ropes?” Finn asks.

“On nice tall boys.”

Puck grins to himself, because he’s pretty sure if there were just a few different circumstances—namely, if Burt and Carole weren’t around—Kurt would have dragged them under a tree already and be halfway to naked. 

And given that Faurot is one of the biggest parks in Lima, it’s probably a good thing that, when they get closer to the games area, they bump into Brooklyn and ‘Girlfriend’ – Puck has no idea what ‘Girlfriend’ is actually named, but since she’s squeezing Brooklyn’s hand, ‘Brooklyn’s Girlfriend’ probably works. 

“Oh, hi! We know you guys!” Brooklyn says excitedly, and her eyes drift down to Puck and Kurt’s joined hands and then back up to their faces. “It’s like a mini-PFLAG meeting!”

“Hello,” Kurt says, sounding amused. “I suppose it is.”

‘Girlfriend’ looks like she’s about to laugh, and she turns to whisper something to Brooklyn that Puck can’t quite make out, though he’s pretty sure the final word is ‘two’. Brooklyn does laugh and nods her agreement, and says, “Now we know!”

“So how’d you three end up here?” ‘Girlfriend’ asks after a minute. “Brooklyn’s mom works at the hospital.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I knew that. Some of her mom’s friends buy coffee regularly.”

“They talking about me again?” Brooklyn asks, rolling her eyes. “Those old biddies need lives, always gossip gossip gossip.”

“Oh, only once or twice,” Puck says with a shrug. “But I think most of the people that work there gossip all the time.”

“You’d think working with sick people and all those crazy emergencies would be exciting enough,” Brooklyn sighs. “But it never is.”

“Maybe they work in a boring part of the hospital,” Finn says. “My mom does. Nothing exciting.” Finn’s standing awkwardly, like he’s not exactly sure how close he’s supposed to stand or if he’s allowed to touch them or not. 

“My mom delivers babies. Pretty sure that should be exciting enough,” Brooklyn counters.  
“All that screaming and weird goop all over the place?” She shudders. “Noooo babies for me.”

Puck chews on his lip for a minute, because yeah, there was a lot of screaming and blood and poop and white goop that he’s still not sure what that even _was_. But the end result was beautiful, even though he didn’t personally have to experience the screaming and weird fluids. “They’re kind of nice after they’re cleaned up, though,” he finally says. 

“I love babies,” Finn says. “You can wash off the gross stuff and then it’s, you know, _babies_!”

“Who need hats,” Kurt adds. “Lots of hats.”

“But not fancy hats. Just the regular kind. Lots of those,” Finn agrees. 

“There’s nothing wrong with fancy hats,” Kurt sniffs. “And you’re the one that suggested Joan-Jett as a name, so.”

“It’s a kickass name,” Finn says. 

“They’ve been discussing names for their little sister,” Puck explains, because ‘Girlfriend’ and Brooklyn both look a little confused. 

“Ohhh,” Brooklyn says. “Sorry, I didn’t realize _you_ guys were getting a baby. I’m sure your sister will be great.”

“Not until September,” Kurt explains. “So we’ll most likely miss the screaming part.”

“And the goop,” Finn says. “We just get the baby.”

“Makes sense,” ‘Girlfriend’ nods. “Well, we were going to go find out when the egg and spoon relay race was.” She grins. “We’re hoping they didn’t hardboil the eggs.”

“If they didn’t, let’s take a picture of all the dead eggs,” Puck says with a grin. “For our dear vegan friend.” Puck has a mental image now of Rachel standing in a field of broken eggs, sobbing, and calling them all “MURDERERS” in her loudest voice. 

“Baby chicken massacre,” Finn mutters. “So terrible.”

“We were going to find a potato sack tall enough for Finn,” Puck says with a nod. “Or alternatively, try a four-legged race.” 

“I could just carry somebody piggyback,” Finn says. “Officially they can’t say that’s not four legs. I don’t think the rules say exactly where all the legs have to go.”

Puck and Kurt both start laughing, and Puck reaches out to put his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Yeah, those pesky decisions about where the legs go,” he agrees. 

“Not as complicated as you’d think,” Finn says, nodding his head. 

“There’s a relay race that calls for five–person teams,” Brooklyn suggests. “Team Soups?”

“And now we’re back to ‘Powered by Soup’,” Puck says, grinning at Finn. “Sure.”

“It’s a state of being, not a lifestyle choice,” Finn says, sounding serious. ‘Girlfriend’ looks at him for a second, then turns to Brooklyn with an odd expression. 

Brooklyn shrugs. “No clue. I like him, though!”

Puck exchanges a grin with Kurt, and they look at Finn. “Yeah, we do, too.” 

“I’m Mr. Popularity,” Finn agrees. “Let’s go kick some ass at relay race.”

Puck shakes his head slowly, trying to remember the exact phrase. “It’s always about ass with you, dude.”

“Dude,” Finn counters. “Totally learned from the best.”

‘Girlfriend’ whispers something else in Brooklyn’s ear, and Brooklyn shakes her head. “Yeah, maybe back to the original theory.”

Kurt ignores the girls and shakes his head, looking between Finn and Puck. “Yes, yes, you’re both very good.” He smirks slightly. “Except at Motorsport.”

Finn says to the girls, his tone conversational, “He owns our asses at that.”

“Yeah, definitely the original theory,” Brooklyn says to ‘Girlfriend’.

 

“Last Tuesday morning we have to come in _this_ early,” Puck announces to Marla as he, Kurt, and Finn walk into Waffle House and sit down at the counter. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll still come eat breakfast. We’ll just sleep past dawn,” Kurt says wryly. 

Marla laughs. “Now why should you get to when I don’t?” She shakes her head. “Three coffees coming up, boys, and then you let me know what you want this week.”

When Marla returns with the coffee, Finn says, “I’ll have a cheeseburger, a chocolate chip waffle, and a side of bacon.”

Kurt shakes his head. “Are you going to put the bacon on the burger?”

Finn looks confused. “Why would I do that?”

“Nevermind, darling.” Kurt shrugs and turns to Marla. “Double strawberry waffle and a regular size hashbrowns, diced, peppered, and capped.”

“All-Star Special,” Puck says with a grin. “But you knew that.”

“I did,” Marla says with a laugh, then walks over to call out their order. 

“I never have to do physics again after today,” Kurt says reverently. 

“I don’t have to do science ever again.” Puck smirks. “Which might be even better.”

“Yeah, we aren’t talking about that,” Finn says. “You… _music_ people.”

“That’s us. _Music_ people.” Puck laughs. “Because you aren’t taking any music classes ever.”

“Yeah, but I’ve gotta take science and all kinds of stuff, not just music,” Finn says. 

“I have to take science. Just not physics.” Kurt wrinkles his nose and takes a sip of his coffee. “I can take science that involves a lot of reading. And not math.”

“No more talking,” Finn says. 

“More coffee,” Puck agrees, and Marla brings their food over just a few moments later, refilling all three mugs. Once there’s some bacon and more coffee in Puck, he feels a little more human. “Oh, what time did Tina’s text say?”

“Fifteen minutes before the exam starts,” Kurt answers. “Or maybe twenty. Do you remember, Finn?”

“Twenty,” Finn says. “It was gonna be fifteen and Rachel texted back and said that would make her feel rushed, so Tina changed it. So, it was both, I guess.”

“Of course she would,” Kurt sighs. “Doesn’t Rachel have some kind of art elective second period anyway?” He shakes his head. 

“No, it’s ‘Business Computer Applications’,” Puck answers with a snort. “Sometimes she comes into English complaining about Excel or whatever.”

“You’d think she’d _want_ to excel,” Finn says. “But hey, one more week and kinda never my problem again.”

“Barely anyone’s problem after another day or two,” Puck points out, then stops Marla to ask for their to-go cups of coffee. “Wonder what nonsense Schue’s going to tell the newbies, though. I mean, _we_ have plenty to tell them, but.”

“Every voyage begins with Journey,” Finn says. “And, uh, never have secret meetings, because you might win something.”

Kurt laughs. “No, it’ll be on the magical mystical power of a good mash-up.”

“But we know all the important stuff, like scuffing your bottoms… of your shoes.” Finn grins at Kurt. “That’s all you really need to know.”

“I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘defy gravity’,” Kurt says with a similar grin. 

Finn shakes his head. “Yeah, but all those freshmen and sophomores floating around in there? That’s just craziness.”

“What’s crazy is that we were freshmen and sophomores not that long ago,” Puck laughs. “And now they seem so very young.”

“And _tiny_ ,” Finn adds.

“Everyone’s tiny to you,” Kurt points out. “Ready?”

“Do I have a choice?” Finn asks.

“Since you didn’t drive yourself, no,” Kurt acknowledges. “Unless you want to walk.”

“Then I’m totally ready!”

When they get to McKinley, Tina’s standing outside the main doors alongside Mike, and by the time the three of them walk over, they’re all more or less assembled. 

“I feel like I’m presenting an Oscar or something,” Tina laughs. 

“Nah, this is _better_ than an Oscar,” Mike says. 

“It’s like the Tonys!” Rachel gushes. “Just think, one day, one of us might win a Tony!”

“I think for today, we should just post the list,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “Excuse me. The _glist_.”

“A ‘glist’ should be shinier,” Brittany says. “Needs glitter.”

“Oh, hang on!” Mike swings his backpack off his shoulder and rummages in the front pocket for a minute before holding up a glitter glue pen triumphantly. “Here we go! Outline the words or add decorations, Britt?”

“Yes,” Brittany says. “Both of those things.”

Tina takes the glitter pen with a grin and does add glitter to the glist, then turns it towards them. “Better?”

“It’s the most beautiful list I’ve ever seen,” Brittany says. 

“Too bad Kurt didn’t bring his Bedazzler,” Finn adds. 

“I’m out of rhinestones,” Kurt says dryly, but Puck’s pretty sure he actually is. Finn shakes his head sadly. 

The twelve of them walk inside towards the main announcements bulletin board, and Puck isn’t really sure why they’re being so dramatic about it, except that for the first time in three years, there are people who _want_ to be in glee club that aren’t going to be. Alicia Brown and those three Cheerios are actually waiting nearby, though the one that also did Adele is standing furthest from Alicia, looking a little anxious. Alicia just looks like she’s awaiting someone to hand her a crown. 

Tina turns towards the bulletin board, hissing “Cover me!” to Mike and Sam, who do sort of shield her and the list as she finds four thumbtacks. Once the list is up, she turns around and grins. “Any last words?” she says, looking at Finn. 

“They’re never gonna be as good as we were, but I sure as hell hope they try,” Finn says, with a big grin. 

They all laugh and then Tina, Mike, and Sam move away from the glist, stepping to the side. Alicia and her Cheerios hurry forward, and Alicia looks like she’s just a moment away from saying ‘I told you so’, but the other three all look relieved. 

Alicia pulls her phone out and says to the Son of a Preacher Man girl that they ought to go find Taylor, so Puck’s not sure who she’s texting, but it’s probably Rick. And, in fact, after about a minute, they hear a faint whoop echoing through the halls. A few more of the other people who auditioned come to check the list, one or two looking disappointed and the others ranging from pleased to nearly jubilant. 

Brooklyn and ‘Girlfriend’ walk up to the board and scan the list, then Brooklyn turns towards Puck, Kurt, and Finn and shouts, “Go Team Soups!” before walking away, ‘Girlfriend’ trailing behind her.

“Team Soups?” Mercedes asks. 

“We’re winners,” Finn says. Which is completely true; all the other teams were out–of–shape nurses and a group of ten-year-olds, except for the one group of young cardiologists that almost beat them. Once. Carole was all excited that they’d been so ‘participatory’ and insisted they stop on the way home for ice cream, like they were eight again and just finished a baseball game. 

“Uh-huh,” Mercedes says, clearly thinking Finn’s pulling her leg or something. “Well.”

“Time to finish off one class,” Tina says. “Good luck everyone!”

“It’s relative,” Puck says, and Kurt rolls his eyes. 

“No more physics jokes after today.”

“I thought I was shedding light on the subject.”

“No more!” 

 

Finn’s pretty sure he didn’t fail his A&P final. He’s not sure he can say too much more than that, but he didn’t fail it, at least. When he leaves his classroom, Puck’s leaning against the wall right outside. 

“Oh, hey!” Finn says. 

Puck grins and straightens, walking over to Finn and throwing one arm around Finn’s shoulders. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” Finn asks, though he’s already walking in the direction Puck’s pulling him. 

“Dude.” Puck’s grin slides into more of a smirk. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Well, yeah I know it’s Tue— _hey_! I’m part of _Tuesday_?” 

Puck rolls his eyes. “Duh.”

“ _Awesome_ ,” Finn says, and it is pretty damn awesome. _Tuesday_. That’s important stuff, right there. Kurt already has the Nav running, idling out in the parking lot, and as Finn climbs into the back seat, he announces, “It’s Tuesday!”

“He’s still new,” Puck says. 

“C’est le mardi,” Kurt says with a nod. 

“I don’t know any Marty, but this is still awesome,” Finn says, shaking his head. 

“Did you kill the curve again?” Puck asks Kurt. 

“I think the rest of the class hates me, actually.” Kurt shrugs. “Oh well. They could put actual effort into it instead of relying on the curve.”

It doesn’t take long for them to make it home. They kick their shoes off, then go straight upstairs to Kurt’s room. Puck shuts and locks the door behind them. 

“So the first rule about Tuesday,” Kurt says, pulling off his shirt, “is that clothes aren’t really welcomed.”

“So it’s not, like, a formal occasion or whatever?” Finn asks, whipping off his own shirt and dropping it on the floor. “No ties?”

“Oh, it’s an occasion,” Puck laughs. “But the dress code is ‘naked’.”

“Do we all only take off our own clothes or are we allowed to help other people?”

“You would have to have asked faster to help me,” Puck says, stepping close behind Finn and wrapping one arm across Finn’s chest. “Already naked. You need some help with those jeans, though, darling?”

“Jeans are complicated and I think I used up all my brain in A&P,” Finn says. “So, help’s good.”

“Oh, I hope you didn’t,” Kurt says, stepping out of his pants and underwear. “There’s all this anatomy here.” Puck laughs and slides his hands to the front of Finn’s jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping them quickly before sliding his hands under the waistband of Finn’s underwear and pushing both underwear and jeans down Finn’s legs. 

Finn steps out of his jeans and underwear and kicks them out of the way. “Ok, so that’s rule number one. What’s next?”

“Touching,” Kurt answers. “That’s the other rule. Lots of touching in lots of ways.” Kurt steps closer to Finn and Puck, pressing against their sides. “Do you think that’s something you can deal with, darling?”

“Yes,” Finn says, loudly. “Very much a yes.”

“Don’t forget about the kissing, blue eyes,” Puck says. “Lots of that, too.”

“Kissing is good, too,” Finn says, turning his head towards Puck and kissing him. He takes Puck’s face in his hand and holds it while his tongue slides inside Puck’s mouth. Puck’s mouth opens a little more, and Finn can feel Kurt’s hand on the back of his neck, sliding slowly into his hair. 

“Also the fucking,” Kurt murmurs, moving closer to them, his cock hard against Finn’s leg. Finn kisses Puck harder, because he likes all these rules. Puck sort of melts against Finn, his weight mostly on Finn, returning the kiss with equal force. Finn’s fingers tighten along Puck’s jaw and he can feel Kurt’s fingers tightening in his hair, tugging gently. 

After another moment passes, Kurt pulls both Finn and Puck with him, slowly directing the three of them towards the bed. They manage to land on the bed without landing on each other, Puck squeezed between Kurt and Finn. Finn moves his mouth to Puck’s neck, running his hand down Puck’s side. 

Puck chuckles. “So you like Tuesdays so far?”

“Yep,” Finn says. “They’re pretty good.”

“Just pretty good?” Kurt sounds like he’s insulted. “Hmmph.”

“Pretty good so far,” Finn says. “Could probably be better.”

“I don’t know if we should remedy that or be insulted,” Kurt says to Puck. “What do you think, baby?”

“We could try the first,” Puck answers. “See if we can get him to change his tune, since I know there’s nothing any better out there.” Puck smirks at Finn as he finishes. 

“I think it’s probably a quick fix,” Finn says.

“Again,” Puck says slowly, “We need to make him change his tune.” Puck curls his arm around Finn’s neck and pulls him into a rough but brief kiss before almost pushing him towards Kurt. Kurt kisses Finn just as roughly, biting at Finn’s lower lip. Finn makes a little noise and wraps his arm around Kurt, opening his mouth. Kurt thrusts his tongue into Finn’s mouth and his fingers dig into Finn’s shoulder, Kurt’s nails all sharp in his skin. Puck’s nipping at various spots on Finn’s chest, and then he bites down gently on Finn’s nipple, his fingers pinching the other nipple. 

Finn says “Oh fuck” into Kurt’s mouth, and makes a loud noise, possibly somehow both at the same time, and Puck’s fingers pinch a little harder as his other hand pushes Finn onto his back. 

“Oh, we can arrange that,” Puck says, grinning, and then they’re both on top of him, biting and pinching and licking. “Can fuck you so hard you’ll feel it all day long tomorrow.”

Kurt pulls on Finn’s hair, angling his head to the side, and bites down hard where Finn’s neck and shoulder meet. “Do you want that?” he whispers harshly to Finn. “Want our baby deep inside you, slamming into you?”

Finn can’t call the sound he makes anything other than a whine, a long, low whine that finally turns into a “please.” There’s a minute where nothing seems to be happening, but then he can feel Puck’s hands on his legs, moving them up and spreading them wide. Puck’s cock pushes at his entrance seconds later, sliding in slowly. 

“Fuck, darling,” Puck says. “You’re still so fucking tight. So tight all around me and so warm, you feel so good, Finn.” There’s a hand on Finn’s cock, sliding up and down, but it feels like Kurt’s, and now Kurt’s mouth is the one biting down hard on Finn’s nipples. 

Finn yelps and arches his back, and finally says, “Puck, come _on_!” 

Puck pushes the rest of the way in all at once, fast and hard, and grins down at Finn. “Like that?”

“Harder,” Finn breathes. 

“Oh, fuck,” Puck says, but pulls almost entirely out before slamming back into Finn, harder  
than before, harder than either of them have fucked Finn before, and then repeats it, one hand still around Finn’s thigh, clutching it so tightly that there will be a bruise in the shape of Puck’s hand the next day. 

One of Finn’s hands is in Kurt’s hair and the other reaches out for any part of Puck he can touch, and he hears himself saying, “Fuck, baby, _more_ ,” even though he didn’t consciously make the decision to say that out loud. Puck must agree, though, because he keeps pounding furiously into Finn, and Kurt’s hand on Finn’s cock moves faster and grips tighter. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Finn cries out, maybe in time with Puck fucking him, maybe in time with Kurt’s hand on him, he’s not sure. 

Kurt’s mouth leaves Finn’s chest, and then Kurt says firmly, “Come for us, darling, right _now_ ,” and Finn comes right then, so hard that it splatters up his chest, yelling and twining his fingers in Kurt’s hair. 

A moment later, Puck empties himself into Finn, crying out, and Kurt comes all over all three of them just seconds later. Puck releases Finn’s legs and slumps on top of him, and Kurt throws his arm over both of them. 

“Was _that_ better?” Puck mumbles after a long silence. 

Finn has to take a few more deep breaths before he can answer, and even then, all he can manage is, “Fuck.”

Kurt giggles. “Did we fuck your brains out, darling? See?” Kurt pokes Puck in the side. “Maybe it is possible.”

“’M’the one that said it was,” Puck says, his voice muffled against Finn’s chest. “You said no.”

“Oh.” Kurt sighs and moves closer to them, if that’s possible. “Hmmph.”

“Time is it?” Finn finally manages to ask. 

“Four,” Kurt answers definitively, then pauses. “Ish,” he adds. 

“Awesome,” Finn says. “We should do that _again_ , then. Right now. Or, like, five or ten minutes from right now.”

“Maybe fifteen,” Puck counters. “But at least we already took care of rule number one.”

 

When it's nearly six, Kurt decides they should all get up, because Burt never has gone back to staying quite so late at the shop on Tuesdays. He showers first, and when he gets out of the bathroom, Puck and Finn have already straightened the bed and cracked the window, which means Kurt gets a little distracted with kisses before he works on his hair. 

Puck showers so quickly that he makes it in and out of the shower before Kurt's done, and since it's Puck's turn to cook dinner, he heads downstairs before Kurt or Finn do. By the time Kurt gets downstairs, there's hamburger patties and asparagus on the George Foreman, french fries in the oven, a salad, and a confused–looking Puck holding a bundle of greens. He lifts the bundle and looks at Kurt questioningly. 

"Saute them in oil and garlic?" Kurt suggests, shrugging, because he's not sure what kind they are, exactly. Puck does that, though, and Kurt realizes with a grin that Burt can eat the hamburger patty, asparagus, greens, and salad, and Puck, Kurt, and Finn can have an actual bun and french fries too, which works out quite well. 

Finn’s footsteps on the stairs echo through the house, ahead of him appearing in the doorway. His T-shirt is transparent in spots where he obviously forewent drying himself completely, and his hair is still dripping a bit. “Darling,” Kurt says, biting his lip to keep from grinning. “Did you lose your towel?”

“What?” Finn asks, sounding genuinely confused. “I dried off.”

“There’s a puddle,” Puck says, grinning. “From your hair.”

Finn looks down and then back up at Puck. “No there’s not, asshole. It’s not that wet. You’re just jealous I have all this awesome hair.”

“That’s totally it, asshole,” Puck nods. “Definitely.”

Kurt laughs and runs his hand through Finn’s hair once, then shakes his hand, sending water droplets everywhere. “See?”

“Ok, ok. It’s _kinda_ wet,” Finn admits. “What’s for dinner?”

“Burgers, fries, vegetables.” Puck shrugs. “No bun for Burt.”

“No fries for Dad, either,” Kurt adds, because it really is a win-win situation. More food for them, no fries for Burt.

“Smells garlicky. There’s no snails, right?”

“Next week,” Puck says solemnly. “They don’t sell the good kind here in Lima, so I’ll have to make a special trip.”

“Yeah, I bet we just get garden snails in Lima,” Finn says, nodding. “Not the French kind.”

“The only escargot I’ve ever seen in Lima were at the bait and tackle shop,” Kurt says, wincing. “Though I’m not sure they deserve the title of escargot. They were definitely just… bait.”

“Ew.” Puck wrinkles his nose. “I’ll stick with larger cities and actual grocery stores.”

“Well, since there’s no snails,” Finn says, and he takes a step over to Puck and kisses him. 

Puck pouts a little when Finn pulls away. “So if there’d been snails, I wouldn’t get any kisses?”

“Nope. Well, ok, I would have kissed Kurt first and given you time to rinse the snail out of your mouth,” Finn says, grinning, then turning to Kurt and kissing him. 

“You know what you’re practically asking for, don’t you darling?” Kurt asks. “You know one day he’s going to slip you surprise snails.”

“Yeah, and he’ll just tell me they’re mushrooms,” Finn says. “I don’t know anybody who’s ever done that to anybody else.”

“Tofu. Mushroom. Snails.” Kurt shrugs. “They all taste good with garlic?” he adds airily. 

“Nothing tastes good with tofu,” Puck argues. “It’s just a lie we tell to make people like Burt feel better.”

“Good point,” Kurt concedes. He can hear the faint rumble of Burt’s truck, and straightens slightly, kissing Finn softly before turning to the refrigerator. “Dad’s home.”

As if scripted, Burt opens the door and calls out, “Boys? I’m home!”

“We’re in the kitchen, Dad!” Kurt calls. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Smells good,” Burt says, coming through the door. “Beef?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

“Hamburgers,” Puck answers. 

“ _Patties_ ,” Kurt emphasizes. “No bun, Dad.”

“A little bit of bread’s not gonna kill me,” Burt grumbles. “Carole at least lets me have one of those sandwich thin things.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, and he notices Puck suddenly becoming very busy with the George Foreman. “Those things aren’t a real bun, and wouldn’t you rather have beef than a bun?”

“If I’ve gotta choose one, I guess so,” Burt sighs. “Those things are low carb and everything, though, Kurt. I think she even gets the whatchacallit. Multigrain.”

“Mmmm.” After the salted butter debacle, Kurt’s not convinced of the wisdom of Carole’s shopping choices. She should have known better for multiple reasons. “Well, regardless, there’s some vegetables, too.”

“Food’s ready,” Puck offers, and the four of them sit down to eat. Burt eyes the french fries longingly, but seems to have the wisdom not to complain that he didn’t get any.

“So, how’d the tests go today, boys?” Burt asks. “Everybody feeling good about them?”

“I don’t think I failed anything,” Finn says, with a shrug. 

“That’s something to aim for, I guess,” Burt responds, shaking his head slightly.

“I never have to take physics again,” Kurt says brightly. “Even if I _did_ fail the exam.”

Puck laughs. “But the exam was a little bit of a joke. All year with math problems and essays, and she gave us multiple choice for the final.”

“So that’s good, then,” Burt nods. “Hopefully no actual exam failure, and nobody ever has to take any of those classes over again.”

“And we posted the glist.” Kurt laughs. “I’ve never seen anyone actually nervous about getting into glee club before.”

“How many kids auditioned for it?” Burt asks, casting another mournful look at the french fries. Finn reaches out and pointedly takes the last few fries, then splits them evenly between his plate, Puck’s, and Kurt’s. Kurt grins at Finn before answering Burt. 

“About twenty-five, I think. We ended up letting fifteen in.”

“One kid fell off the stage trying to dance and sing at the same time. That just wouldn’t work,” Puck adds. 

“He wasn’t hurt bad or anything,” Finn explains. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be funny.”

“I think they’ll be singing a lot of Adele next year, though,” Puck remarks. “Three different girls sang the _same_ Adele song to audition.

“But you guys were happy with the new group?”

“It’s a good mix,” Kurt answers. “As Finn said, they won’t be as awesome as we are, but they should at least try.”

“Any kids that you know? From PFLAG or anything?” Burt asks.

“Several,” Puck laughs. 

“I think glee club may be the unofficial PFLAG auxiliary,” Kurt says ruefully. 

“Glee club is continuing its tradition of diversity,” Finn declares, without looking up from his plate. Burt stares at Finn for a moment, like he’s not sure he heard Finn correctly or is confused by what he heard.

“Maybe it’s more of a ‘legacy’ or a ‘heritage’, dude,” Puck says with a snort. 

“Legacy of diversity, then,” Finn says. “We’ve been diverse for three years, so that’s kind of like a tradition.”

“Actually on that note, I’d like to propose a toast,” Puck laughs. “We managed to get through three years of glee club without me ever having to do a song from _Fiddler_.”

After they finish eating, Finn and Puck go into the living room to play _Call of Duty_ or another one of the games that Kurt won’t play, and as long as they keep thinking it’s just because he doesn’t like those games, then everything’s fine. Kurt loads the dishwasher and grins to himself at the occasional ‘asshole’ that drifts out of the living room, over the sound of the game. He’s starting to wash the grill when he realizes Burt’s still just sitting at the table. 

“Dad?”

“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about something, but I didn’t want to bring it up in front of your brother.”

“Is everything okay?” Kurt turns off the water and turns around, leaning against the counter in front of the sink. “Nothing’s wrong with Pretzel, right?”

“No, the baby’s fine,” Burt says, quickly. “She’s great. Everything’s right on track and the doc says she’s perfect.” He pauses and glances in the direction of the living room. “I wanted to ask you if there was something going on with Finn.”

Kurt can feel his stomach turn over and his eyes widen a little, and he makes sure the rest of his face stays the same, blank and curious and unknowing. “Nothing that’s not going on with all of us,” he says lightly. “You know, graduating. Leaving home. Why?”

“Carole’s been acting a little… odd, I guess. Odd’s a good word for it. Ever since Finn got suspended. Have you noticed that at all? Anything odd?” Burt asks.

“I, uh.” Kurt takes a deep breath. “She was very upset. About the suspension. And why Finn got into the fight.” None of that’s untrue, Kurt figures. “I just assumed, you know. Pregnancy.”

“Do you think Finn said something to her? That hurt her feelings, maybe? Things just seem really tense between the two of them, and if there’s something he needs to apologize for—”

“Stop.” Kurt says. “Just stop right there. I _heard_ their conversation that afternoon, and you didn’t, and if anyone is owed an apology, it’s Finn _and_ me.” He can feel his jaw tighten, and it’s an effort not to speak too loudly. The sounds of the game in the living room continue, though. 

“Carole mentioned that he used some pretty inappropriate language with her,” Burt counters. “Now, she admits she was yelling at him, but that doesn’t really excuse it.”

“Inappropriate language?” Kurt clutches at the dishtowel in his hand. “Did she mention that she said _I_ was the reason he got suspended? Or that what she felt was inappropriate was Finn _repeating what was said to him_?” Kurt shakes his head. 

“Wait, she was blaming you for that?” Burt frowns. “Kurt, I have a really hard time believing that. She didn’t say anything to me about being upset with you. I could barely get her to tell me she was upset with Finn, and even then, I still feel like I’m missing something here.”

“I believe the phrase was something like, ‘is it better for him to know he’s the reason you’re suspended’, where the ‘he’ in question was _me_.” Kurt presses his mouth together in a thin line. “If Carole doesn’t want you to know why she’s upset, I really can’t help you.”

“I just have this feeling. Like there’s something going on here, something about Finn, and I’m not getting the information I need,” Burt says. 

“Well, she certainly hasn’t seemed upset the past few days,” Kurt offers, and of course he knows why, but the last thing the three of them need is trying to find a new place to live after getting caught in the crossfire or something. 

“You’re sure there’s not something that I need to know?” Burt asks, looking Kurt in the eyes. “You’d tell me if something was wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong, Dad,” Kurt assures Burt, and that, at least, he can say with a clear conscience. From Kurt’s perspective, there’s absolutely nothing at all that is wrong. 

 

Ms. Horatio stops Puck as he’s heading to change on Wednesday morning. “You’ll have time to discuss the summer tonight?”

“Oh, yeah.” Puck nods. “Yeah, I need to check on a few dates for sure, but tonight should be fine. It’s still okay to come in a little late?”

“That’s fine, Noah. Good luck on your exams today!”

Puck smiles briefly. “Thanks.” Once he changes, he grabs three drinks and walks out to where Finn and Kurt are both waiting, Finn’s truck pulled behind the Nav. Carole hasn’t said a word about Kurt riding with Finn now, and Puck’s pretty sure she’s not going to. 

“Thanks, baby,” Kurt says, taking a long sip of his drink. “Are we ready for this?”

“Easiest exam of the week,” Puck jokes. 

“Yeah, you probably got, like, November or something,” Finn says. “A no–drama month.”

“I didn’t think that no–drama months _existed_ at McKinley,” Puck retorts. 

“Certainly not in glee club,” Kurt agrees, laughing. 

“I wish _I’d_ gotten November,” Finn sighs. “I’d just sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself and be done with it. Is it bad that I kinda didn’t want to have to think back over this year that hard?”

“No,” Puck and Kurt say at the same time, and that sums things up pretty well. 

They walk towards the auditorium together, and it is nice that at least one morning they don’t have an exam. 

“Bat–guitar?” Kurt asks, nodding at Puck’s guitar case. 

“Nah, apparently Schue told everyone to let the jazz band handle it or something? But I was going to use it myself, so.”

It’s also probably the only exam all week that everyone shows up early for, sitting in the seats of the auditorium and waiting for Schue to arrive. 

Schue looks a little teary–eyed, actually, when he walks in and looks at the twelve of them, but it passes pretty quickly. “Let’s get this year in review started,” he announces. “Think back to June 2011, with…” He looks down at his notepad. “Sam!”

Sam grins a little and stands up with his own guitar in hand, making his way up onto the stage. “I was pretty happy to get June, actually, and I’m doing ‘You Could Be My Girl’.” He shoots a grin and a wink at Mercedes, who grins happily, before starting to play. 

_you’re lookin at the reason I'm a killer this year  
I’ve been drinkin, but I feel fine  
I’ve been thinking you should be mine  
for the weekend or a long time  
baby you could you could be my girl  
you could be my girl  
you could be my girl and I could be your man_

Everyone claps at the end and Sam takes a cheesey bow before jumping down off the stage and planting a kiss on Mercedes. 

“Yes, yes, thank you, Sam,” Schue says tolerantly. “Moving along to July with Puck!”

Puck stands up, hand around the neck of his Fender, and this time, he doesn’t miss the envious look on Kurt and Finn’s faces. He climbs up on the stage and plugs the guitar in, then nods. “It’s not a perfect fit, but most songs aren’t one hundred percent, and it came pretty damn close, so.” He shrugs and starts to play ‘Why Can’t I’ without actually announcing the title. 

_Isn't this the best part of breakin' up  
Finding someone else you can't get enough of  
Someone who wants to be with you too_

_It's an itch we know we are gonna scratch  
Gonna take a while for this egg to hatch  
But wouldn't it be beautiful_

_Here we go, we're at the beginning  
We haven't fucked yet, but my heads spinning_

_Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you  
Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you  
It's inevitable, it's a fact that we're gonna get down to it  
So tell me  
Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you_

And yeah, maybe he _should_ have skipped the ‘fucked’ line, but he’s already sung that word at least once this year and at this point, he’s pretty sure they’re not going to hold back his diploma over a single word. Schue does look like a beached fish or whatever, though, spluttering with his mouth gaping. Kurt’s doing his whole thing with biting on his lip to keep from grinning too widely, and Finn looks rather smug. When the song finishes, Puck unplugs his guitar and smirks. “Sorry, Mercedes, I don’t think we’re all going to finish by kissing you.”

Mercedes’ face goes from confused to exasperated pretty quickly, and she shakes her head with a snort. Oddly, Quinn looks pleased as Puck climbs back off the stage and takes his seat again. 

“That was, uh. A good song,” Schue manages. “Except for the language.” Puck just shrugs. “Well, onward to August! Tina?”

Tina grins and grabs the microphone as she reaches the center of the stage. “Mine’s more about us as a group than a personal song,” she says. “So this is ‘In This Diary’.”

_It still brings a smile to my face.  
I guess when it comes down to it…_

_Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:  
These are the best days of our lives.  
The only thing that matters  
is just following your heart  
and eventually you'll finally get it right._

Tina grins and curtsies when she finishes. “August was a good month,” she says, and everyone seems to more or less agree with her. 

“It was!” Schue agrees. “The beginning of the year always has so much potential.” He looks down at his notes again. “Santana, September?”

“Yeah, so. ‘These Are Days’,” Santana says, without any additional fanfare.

_These are days, you'll remember  
Never before and never since, I promise  
Will the whole world be warm as this and as you feel it_

Puck nods a little to himself, vaguely recognizing the tune as Santana sings. 

_These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break  
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face  
When you do you'll know how it was meant to be_

Schue looks a little teary again at the end of Santana’s song, and manages just a heartfelt “Good job, Santana” as she leaves the stage. “Okay. October. Artie, you’re up.” 

Artie nods and rolls forward, then Puck and Sam lift him on the stage. “My song isn’t exactly as deep as Tina’s and Santana’s,” Artie says. “It’s a little more personal.”

“That’s fine, Artie,” Schue assures him with a nod. “Both kinds of songs are fine for this assignment.” Schue’s obviously expecting something more mellow, because he seems surprised when the jazz band starts playing upbeat rock music.

_I’m going to the hardware store  
And buy you a great big hammer  
Girly won’t you pull these nails out of my heart_

_And I’m going to the sporting goods store  
And buy you a really heavy baseball bat  
Girly won’t you knock these thoughts out of my head_

_Beat me ’til I’m black and blue  
And I’m hangin by a thread  
And I can get back up  
And we’ll do it all over again_

Puck knows he shouldn’t be so amused, but it is sort of funny. It’s not that Artie can’t get a date, he just… makes poor choices, or something. When Artie finishes, Puck and Sam lift him back off the stage, and Schue nods a little to himself. “Interesting, good job,” he says to Artie, before consulting the damn notepad again. 

“You’d think he could have memorized the damn list or something,” Puck mutters to Finn. 

“I dunno, man,” Finn says, shrugging. “Twelve’s a big number.”

“Still, every time?” Puck shakes his head. “Guess we’ll find out who got the no–drama month now.”

“Okay, November!” Schue finally says. “Brittany!”

“Hey, that’s good,” Finn whispers. “No drama for Brittany, so we’ll get something happy, probably.” Brittany goes bouncing up to the mic with a big smile on her face. “See?” Finn adds, “Happy!”

The music the jazz band starts playing is somber, though, and Brittany almost croons into the microphone. 

_It was a monday, when my lover told me,  
"Never pay the reaper with love only."  
What could I say to you, except, "I love you."  
And "I'd give my life for yours." _

“Dude, this is _not_ happy,” Finn hisses in Puck’s ear. “What is she doing?” Puck shrugs, because he can’t quite place the song. 

_I know we are… we are the lucky ones.  
I know we are… we are the lucky ones.  
I know we are… we are the lucky ones, dear._

“It wasn’t totally depressing,” Puck points out at the end of the song, as everyone’s clapping and Brittany curtsies. 

“No, it kinda was,” Finn says. 

“Thank you, Brittany,” Schue says before Puck can respond. “Next up is Quinn with December!”

Quinn steps to center stage. “My song is representative of a time in my life I’m not particularly proud of,” she says, softly, “and I’m glad to be able to say I’m putting it behind me.”

_So many things I'd say if only I were able  
But I just keep quiet  
And count the cars that pass by_

_You've got opinions, man  
We're all entitled to ’em  
But I never asked_

Puck nudges Finn. “Well, that’s definitely December for her.”

_Who cares if you disagree  
You are not me  
Who made you king of anything  
So you dare tell me who to be  
Who died  
And made you king of anything_

“Yeah, that’s December,” Finn says to Puck. 

“Thank you, Quinn,” Schue says with a nod as Quinn steps down off the stage. “And now we leave 2011 behind and turn to 2012… let’s have January with Finn.”

Huh. Puck wouldn’t have thought Finn would have looked so relieved to get January, but there are definitely worse months. Like February. 

Finn looks somber as he walks up to the stage. “This song is by Dire Straits,” he says. “It’s kinda about this whole year, for me, but it’s also about how this year started, and that January, so…” he trails off, shrugs, and then nods at the jazz band. 

_These mist covered mountains  
Are a home now for me  
But my home is the lowlands  
And always will be  
Some day you'll return to  
Your valleys and your farms  
And you'll no longer burn  
To be brothers in arm_

Finn starts out singing into the audience, not looking at anyone in particular, but as he moves into the second verse, he turns his face towards Puck and Kurt. 

_Through these fields of destruction  
Baptisms of fire  
I've witnessed your suffering  
As the battle raged higher  
And though they did hurt me so bad  
In the fear and alarm  
You did not desert me  
My brothers in arms_

_There's so many different worlds  
So many different suns  
And we have just one world  
But we live in different ones_

Puck bites at his lips and exchanges a long glance with Kurt, who looks about as sad as Puck feels. It’s _true_ , that’s the hard part, and all they can do is ignore reality for a little while longer. Puck startles slightly when everyone starts to clap, and then he feels bad for tuning out the rest of the song, but he didn’t miss that much specifically. 

As Finn sits back down, Schue looks at his notepad and Puck absently wonders who did get stuck with February. He looks around the room and he’s looking straight at Mike when Schue announces. “And now February. Kurt.” 

Well, shit. He sees Mike wince, and wonders about that for a second, before turning back to Finn. “Fuck,” he whispers under his breath as Kurt stands. 

“Shit,” Finn agrees. “He should have said. Fuck the assignment, he had _February_.”

“I thought he looked too calm,” Puck admits, shaking his head. “I just wasn’t sure if it was really good or really bad.”

Kurt shakes his head ever so slightly and stands in the middle of the stage. “So it was my unhappy task to relive and then memorialize February through song.” Puck cuts his eyes over to Schue, who at least has the decency to look faintly ashamed or embarrassed, like it has only occurred to him in this moment that perhaps they should have done last May through this May, and skipped February altogether. 

Finn takes Puck’s hand in his and rests them both on the arm between the seats, glaring in Schue’s direction like he’s daring him, or anybody else, to say something about it. 

“So. This is ‘Run’.”

_I'll sing it one last time for you  
Then we really have to go  
You've been the only thing that's right  
In all I've done_

_And I can barely look at you  
But every single time I do  
I know we'll make it anywhere  
Away from here_

_Light up, light up  
As if you have a choice  
Even if you cannot hear my voice  
I'll be right beside you dear_

_Louder louder  
And we'll run for our lives  
I can hardly speak I understand  
Why you can't raise your voice to say_

Kurt’s not looking at anyone, staring up at the top of auditorium far beyond where any of them are sitting, but as the music changes he looks down, sweeping his gaze over all of them. 

_To think I might not see those eyes  
Makes it so hard not to cry  
And as we say our long goodbye  
I nearly do_

_Light up, light up  
As if you have a choice  
Even if you cannot hear my voice  
I'll be right beside you dear_

_Louder louder  
And we'll run for our lives  
I can hardly speak I understand  
Why you can't raise your voice to say_

_Slower slower  
We don't have time for that  
All I want's to find an easy way  
To get out of our little heads_

Schue looks a little pale by now, because Kurt’s pouring everything into the song, like he often does, and Puck hopes Schue feels more than a little embarrassed. Kurt plants himself in the middle of the stage, face almost contorted, as he belts out the last verse.

_Have heart, my dear  
We're bound to be afraid  
Even if it's just for a few days  
Making up for all this mess_

_Light up, light up  
As if you have a choice  
Even if you cannot hear my voice  
I'll be right beside you dear_

It was probably the part about the mess that finally hits Puck worse than the rest of it, and as the music ends, the auditorium is absolutely silent except for the sound of tears. Kurt’s frozen on the stage, and when Puck looks over at Finn, there are tears running down Finn’s face, too. Puck nudges Finn’s side and starts to stand, because Puck’s not sure Kurt’s going to be able to move anytime soon, not after that and everything that happened that month. 

Finn stands, too, and follows Puck up to the stage. Puck wraps his arm around Kurt’s waist as Finn does the same to Kurt’s shoulders, and they walk him back off the stage, sitting down again with Kurt now in the middle. Finn takes Kurt’s left hand, and Puck takes his right, and Finn goes right back to glaring at Schue. 

For his part, Schue fumbles with his notepad and doesn’t say anything for another couple of minutes, until the sounds of crying taper off, and then he very quietly says, “Well, Mercedes, if you’d like to tackle March now?”

Mercedes stands up and straightens her clothes and says, “Well, I don’t know if I can adequately follow that performance, but I will try. I’m going to sing ‘Holding On’ by Jamie Grace.”

_Oh and these are the times when doubt’s tryin’ to creep in  
And I need a reason that’s larger than life when hope seems hard to find  
If only I can fight just a little longer  
I know it’s gonna make me stronger_

_So I just keep holding on to what I believe  
Oh, I believe in you  
Give me the strength to fight  
And a heart to believe  
When it’s hard to believe  
I’ll just keep holding on, holding on, holding on_

Puck’s never heard the song before, or even heard of the artist, but Mercedes does a decent job, smiles broadly, and takes a seat. Schue compliments her performance and then looks down again. “April. Rachel,” he nods at her.

“Mr. Schuester, fellow glee club performers, I have prepared a song from Sondheim’s _Merrily We Roll Along_ , ‘Not a Day Goes By’.” She shoots a look at Finn that is probably meant to be endearing, but Finn doesn’t notice. 

_I keep thinking, ‘When does it end?  
Where’s the day I’ll have started forgetting?’  
But I just go on  
Thinking and sweating  
And cursing and crying  
And turning and reaching  
And waking and dying_

It’s a technically proficient performance, because that’s just what Rachel does, but Puck thinks that despite her looks at Finn, the emotion’s even more forced than usual. Still, everyone claps again and Schue looks at the notepad a final time. 

“And finally, we have this month, May 2012, from Mike.”

“Suddenly wishing I was Mike again,” Finn says, just loud enough for Puck to hear him, and Puck has to quickly stifle his laugh. 

“I’m just doing ‘Here’s To the Night’, from Eve 6,” Mike announces. 

_Put your name on the line  
Along with place and time  
Want to stay, not to go, I want to ditch the logical  
Here's a toast to all those who hear me all too well_

_Here's to the nights we felt alive  
Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry  
Here's to goodbye tomorrow's gonna come too soon_

After Mike sits down, Schue starts clapping again, slowly. “If this were an actual exam,” he says, “you would all pass with flying colors. As it is, I need you to all come with me to the choir room before you go to lunch.”

When they get to the choir room, Schue grabs a pair of scissors and then stands in front of the bulletin board, which is now covered in so many layers that it’s hard to see the red paper underneath, where their names are written inside the black–outlined squares. 

“I think you each should take your square,” Schue explains, gesturing to the board. “Finn, can you help me lay this on the table?”

Finn still looks a little pissed from earlier, but he says, “Sure thing, Mr. Schue,” and helps untack the paper from the bulletin board. The two of them carefully lay it down on the table. 

“So,” Schue starts, carefully cutting along the lines, “you can each take them home as is, with all of the notes you’ve left for yourself and each other.” He smiles slightly. “I wonder about the cards you did, at the beginning?”

Kurt takes his square and looks at the very bottom layer with a strange smile on his face. “There are still five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes in a year.”

“Yup, that happened,” Finn says, looking at the bottom layer of his square. “I’m psychic.”

“What did it say?” Sam asks, looking at his own square. 

“Football scholarship.”

“Buy me a lottery ticket later, dude,” Puck laughs. 

“Selectively psychic,” Finn says. “What’s yours say?”

Puck grins wryly. “ _We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do_.”

“Guess you’re psychic, too, huh?” Finn says, a little more softly. 

Puck shrugs. “Maybe we’ll skip the lottery tickets, though.”

“Hey, you guys, listen to Tina’s,” Mike breaks in, then nudges Tina. “Read it.”

Tina rolls her eyes but does start to read hers. “‘Be the change’.”

“Tina was all the change,” Brittany says. “She was like change for a twenty. Maybe even a fifty.”

Tina giggles and starts to blush. “Thanks, Britt.”

“Brittany’s right,” Kurt says. “All the change.”

“We should all sign each other’s squares,” Quinn says. “Like yearbooks, without the vandalism.”

Puck has to work hard not to laugh, because he’s never thought of signing someone’s yearbook as _vandalism_ , but it’s not a bad idea, and soon everyone’s digging in their bags for pens and swapping squares around. 

There’s some laughter out of Tina when she’s got Brittany’s square and unearths the squirrel that’s the first thing on it. 

“What’s the ‘thank you’ for?” Santana says, looking at Finn. “There was one on someone else’s, too.”

“Puck’s,” Sam reports. 

“Kurt’s too,” Rachel nods. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He runs his hand through his hair and looks at Schue, then shrugs like it doesn’t really matter any more. “That was Casey. Back when he was first having trouble with Jojo, me and Karofsky sorta… handled it, and Kurt and Puck helped him out.”

“Too bad Jojo didn’t learn,” Santana nods. 

“Oh, look, Noah,” Rachel says. “Remember, you got an acceptance letter before any of us! And now look at all of us.”

“Who’s going to be the closest to Lima?” Mike asks. 

“Me, I think,” Mercedes says. “Straight down I–75, just a few states to go through first.”

“It’s about the same distance as to Madison, but no straight shot,” Finn says. “Kinda all over the place.”

“Right at Chicago and straight on ’til Madison doesn’t have quite the same ring to it,” Kurt muses. “Though it is accurate.”

When Quinn finishes signing Puck’s square, she walks it over to him and hands it to him with an odd look on her face. Her eyes flick between Puck and Kurt a few times, and she looks like she’s actively keeping herself from asking or saying anything. Puck takes the square back with a wry smile. 

“Thanks, Quinn.”

“Thank _you_ , Puck,” Quinn says enigmatically.

Everyone seems reluctant to leave the choir room, making excuses and continuing conversations until the bell rings and stomachs start growling. “Lunch?” Puck says to Kurt and Finn. 

“You think it’s a bad idea to go home and get into Burt’s beer?” Finn asks. 

“I’m not sure it’s going to impact your performance on your Spanish final,” Kurt shrugs. “It might even improve it.”

“Tres cervezas, por favor,” Finn says. “See? Totally gonna rock it.”

“It’s already working and you haven’t even had a sip.” Puck nods. “I’m impressed.”

“Actually, I learned that from a beer commercial on the radio,” Finn confesses, “but if it comes up on the final, I’m set.”

They’re starting to head for the door when Tina intercepts them, flinging her arms around Kurt first. It’s like Tina was the start of some dominos, though, because suddenly everybody’s hugging, some of the girls and Sam crying. It takes another five or ten minutes to leave the choir room and hit the parking lot, and they’re halfway back to the house when Puck snaps his fingers. 

“Oh, I have to talk to Ms. Horatio about my summer schedule this afternoon, so we need dates if we’re seriously going to the beach.”

Kurt nods. “Dad probably would like to know relatively soon, too.”

“Yeah, I have to figure out my schedule, too. I’ve got this whole workout thing I’ve got to do, it’s almost kinda like a full-time job,” Finn says. “Seriously. It’s insane.”

“Is there a week you _don’t_ have to do workouts?” Kurt asks. “I doubt the beach has a fully–equipped weight room or whatever.”

“Well, I don’t think I have to video myself to prove it or anything,” Finn says. “I can run and stuff like that. I think there’s a week off in there somewhere. I’ll show you the schedule at home.”

“That might be easiest?” Puck shrugs. “Anyway, I’m going to tell her that in general I want Tuesdays and Saturdays off. Apparently seniority has a few benefits.”

“Sweet! I like Tuesdays!”

Kurt smirks a little. “Dad’s going to be confused why we all think Tuesday is such a fine day to have off work.”

“Movie theater’s less crowded,” Finn says. “And the parks are emptier.”

“That of course is completely why,” Puck nods. 

“Not wising him up if you aren’t, dude.”

“We’re just taking advantage of taxpayer funded resources. Of course.” Kurt grins as he parks the Nav. “Okay, am I driving later or are you, baby?”

“I can,” Puck shrugs as they walk through the garage. “You could probably write the final asleep, so a little drunk shouldn’t be a problem.”

Kurt laughs. “Probably not.”

 

Puck still isn’t sure why Schue needs thirty minutes with all of them and the fifteen newbies, though he’s not sure the twelve of them can communicate everything that needs to be told to the fifteen newbies in just the thirty minutes afterwards. Still, they head back to McKinley after their final and head to the choir room. 

The twelve of them end up on one side of the choir room, and the new kids are all on the other side, as they all wait for Schue to arrive. 

“They look so tiny,” Finn whispers, then he raises his voice to address the newbies. “Hey, you guys need to stay after Schue leaves, so we can tell you all the shit you actually need to know.”

About half of them laugh, and Alicia just gives them a thumbs-up. 

Schue sweeps in after that, carrying a stack of exams, and Puck wonders if they could grab Finn’s and ‘grade’ it for Schue without Schue noticing. “Oh, great, you’re all here!” Schue says, looking around the classroom. 

There’s a weird pause, Schue’s gaze going from the twelve of them to the new bunch and back again. 

“So. Welcome to New Directions. These twelve have set the bar kind of high for you to follow,” Schue says. “And in the fall, we’ll have auditions for freshmen, so there may end up being a few more of you in the end. But the main thing you need to know before the summer is that we’ll get together one of the days before the school year.” He stops and then makes a funny little gesture towards Finn and then the rest of them. “You should listen to these guys now, though.”

Finn says, “Thanks, Mr. Schue. So, uh. Hi, you guys. I’m Finn Hudson and I’m sorta kinda the leader of our glee club. I mean, only because nobody else wanted to do it except for Rachel, but also I just sorta decide, yeah, that’s me. I’ll do this. So, the first thing you guys need to do, is decide on a leader, because it’s good to have somebody to blame when stuff gets messed up.”

“And we already knew that was you, dude,” Puck snorts. 

The new kids look at each other and then back at Finn, like they aren’t sure if he means _right then_ or at some indeterminate point in the future. 

“No, guys, like, _right now_ ,” Finn says. “Go on. We’ll wait.”

Finally, they start talking amongst themselves, and Tina shakes her head. “They wouldn’t believe it if they saw _our_ first rehearsals.”

“We sounded quite good the first time we ever did ‘Don’t Stop Believing’,” Rachel argues. “I know that half of you weren’t there for that auspicious occasion, but—”

“But we can help them do better,” Finn says.

“Actually, I did see that,” Puck says. “It wasn’t bad.”

“We did, too,” Santana laughs, looking at Quinn. “What was that, spy on glee club day?”

“Now I’m kinda sorry I missed out.” Mike shrugs. “Oh well.”

“Okay!” Alicia’s voice breaks through. “We’re done.”

“Great! That’s great,” Finn says. “So, it’s you, right?”

Alicia cocks her head to the side and raises an eyebrow. “Do you even have to ask?” she says with a grin. 

Finn grins back at her. “It’s nice to say it out loud, though, isn’t it?”

“Mmmhmm. What’s next?”

“Ooh, I like her,” Finn says, turning to Kurt. “We needed her!” He turns back to the group, but he’s mostly addressing Alicia now. “You’ve got to be fierce with them. Set practice schedules. They’ll complain. Ignore them. Mandy’s your choreographer. I’m not asking you that, I’m telling you. Right, Mike?”

Mike grins. “Exactly. Be nice to your choreographer, or you’ll end up doing dances that you hate.”

“What he isn’t telling you,” Kurt interjects, “is that you also need one or two people to reign you in when necessary. Isn’t that right, Finn?” Kurt grins and raises an eyebrow. 

“Yes sir, bossofme,” Finn says. “You need to get you a Kurt, Alicia. Well, not an actual Kurt. This one’s ours. You have to find a Kurt–like person of your own.”

Alicia laughs. “Duly noted.”

“Now, the rest of the club is going to tell you a bunch of important stuff,” Finn explains. “Pay attention to all of it, even if it seems weird. But you guys can do this. Mr. Schue, he’s great, but _you_ guys, you’re the ones who are gonna have to do this. It’ll be on you. You have to keep yourself on schedule and be involved in stuff. Oh, and you guys? You all need to go to PFLAG, because glee is, like, home of the Soups. And if you don’t know what that means, you _really_ need to go to PFLAG.”

“Team Soups!” Brooklyn shouts.

“Hell yeah,” Finn answers. “Ok, Mike? You wanna talk to them about dancing?”

“Dancing is not as easy as it looks.” Mike grins. “It’s not the hardest thing you’ll ever do, either, but it still is like exercise. One thing we didn’t figure out until about two months ago is that if everyone works out, we all dance better. So listen to your choreographer, give her power when you’re choosing your set list, and go for a run or do yoga or pilates or lift weights or some combination of all of those regularly. You’ll thank yourself in rehearsal and when you’re performing.” He turns to his side and gestures for Tina to take her turn.

“This is your family,” Tina says. “A lot of you are involved in other activities here, and that’s good, and if you aren’t, you should get involved, but this? This is my family. These are the eleven people I’ve _known_ I can count on, the ten people I’m going to miss the most. So – socialize outside of glee club. Get together a few times this summer. When you have a party, invite everyone. Go to Starbucks on Friday mornings or to see a movie on the weekend or just hang out over dinner after rehearsal.” Tina grins at all of them and then looks to her right. “Britt?”

“Kissing is a good way to make friends,” Brittany says. “You should kiss all your fellow glee members at least once.”

“No, Britt,” Mike says wryly. “Not that advice.”

“Oh. Oh! OK!” Brittany smiles. “Dance with each other. It’s like kissing, but without mouths. Well, there can be mouths, but there doesn’t have to be. Not just choreography dancing. Dance together. Put on music and dance with everybody, boys and girls, and boys and boys, and girls and girls, and all of you together at the same time. Don’t be afraid of each other.”

“They’re all right,” Santana says, “but don’t be afraid to fight, either. It’s okay to disagree. Have it out, and then yeah.” She shrugs. “At the end of the day or the week or sometimes a month or two, you’ll hug and move on.”

“You have no idea,” Quinn begins. “Just, no idea at all, how much these people are going to mean to you. They will forgive you when you do the unforgivable. You have to do the same for them. Don’t let the stupid stuff become a wedge. Appreciate them and learn to appreciate their talent, instead of being jealous.”

“It goes _so_ fast,” Mercedes says. “It feels like yesterday we were getting ready for our first Sectionals, and now we have just one performance left, at graduation. Oh! And sorry, girls.” Mercedes looks at Quinn, Brittany, and Santana, and then across to Alicia and her Cheerios. “Don’t trust Coach Sylvester.”

“Everyone’s already made good points,” Sam says. “I didn’t get warning about this test, and I’m supposed to have extra time on tests.” He laughs. “Don’t be afraid to bring in different genres. I’m probably the only one who voluntarily did country this year, but that’s okay. Bring everything in. Everyone’s got something to learn from everyone else.”

Artie rolls up to the front of the room and says, “Always assume that everybody wants to ride on the same bus.” Rachel especially looks embarrassed, but Artie continues. “Seriously, please assume that your teammates all want to be treated like full members of the glee club. Don’t assume that they can’t do something, just because they don’t look like they can, or that it might be difficult for them. The whole point of this club has always been trying to achieve the impossible. You should support that. No, you should _encourage_ that. These guys have been hauling my ass up flights of stairs for three years, and if you can’t do that for each other, you don’t have any business being in here.”

Of course, as luck has it, Rachel is next, and she tosses her hair a bit dramatically. “Always believe in your talent. Oh, and vocal warm-ups are essential, though I think we covered that in the documentation. They wouldn’t let me include my favorite herbal teas and supplements, however, so if you’d like that information, please talk to me afterwards.” She stops and looks at the rest of them. “Tolerate your most obnoxious member, because she—or he—really will appreciate it,” she finishes, grinning. 

“Two things,” Kurt says with a smile. “First.” He lifts his wrist a little. “Defy gravity. If you don’t know what means, then you should go buy the _Wicked_ soundtrack. Secondly, you’re going to lose your ability to communicate emotionally except via song. Don’t fight it, just embrace it. Whatever the situation or the emotion, there’s probably at least five potential songs about it, and chances are, you can find a way to make at least one of them work with whatever assignment Mr. Schue’s given out that week.”

There’s a few laughs, because it’s so utterly true. One way or another, there’s usually a song that will work. 

“‘Badass’ doesn’t have to mean ‘jackass’,” Puck says. He thinks about saying something along the lines of _don’t sleep with your best friend’s girlfriend; just go straight to sleeping with your best friends_ or possibly _don’t impregnate anyone, especially if you’re actually gay_ , but that’s probably not the kind of advice they need. “Oh, and if you play guitar or piano or whatever, just get used to the whole bat–guitar thing now. They’ll stand up to sing and look at you and say ‘Oh, I need you to play for me!’ and boom. There you are.” Puck grins. “But don’t feel like you have to come up with the standard tab on the fly; most of the time I accompanied these guys, I was improvising.” He looks around him exaggeratedly. “Oops, they didn’t know that.”

“Busted!” Finn calls out. “Bat–guitar fail!”

Tina starts laughing first, trying to hide her giggles behind her hand.

“Hey, it’s not fail if you guys couldn’t tell!”

“I could tell, asshole. I was just covering for you before!” Finn insists, grinning.

Puck snorts. “Yeah, right, asshole. Even on the songs you’d never heard of, right?”

One of Taylor’s friends comments loudly, “There’s a lot of asshole happening in this club.”

Now Tina stops trying to hide anything, just laughing harder and harder. 

“Oh, you’ll learn to appreciate all that asshole,” Finn says, perfectly straight–faced. “It’s the best part of glee club.” The corner of his mouth twitches like he wants to laugh, but he’s still holding it in. 

Tina squeals and stands up. “I have to go pee!” she announces, hurrying out of the room. 

“Go Tina!” Brittany calls after her.

Now most of them are laughing, the new kids looking from slightly to extremely confused, and when she comes back in, she grins. “I peed!”

“Congratulations!” several of them say. 

Puck leans over and pokes Finn’s arm. “C’mon, where’s your personal words of wisdom. That was all Leader shit.”

“Leader shit is the only shit I got, dude,” Finn says. “I don’t know what else to tell them!”

“Put the leadership qualities back in the ziplock baggie, Finn, and tell them something,” Kurt says. 

“Ok, ok, geez,” Finn grumbles. “So bossy, bossofme.” He turns back to the newbies and frowns for a minute, then scrunches up his face like he’s thinking, before saying, “It’s ok if you have absolutely no clue what you’re doing. Not just in here. Like, in general. In life or whatever. That’s totally cool. You can use glee to help you figure it out. You might not want to do music stuff or anything like that, but I bet you can still use glee to help you figure out what you _do_ want to do.” He nods once, and then adds, “Oh yeah, and… uh, vests. And whiteboards. All very important.”

“But preferably not a vest drawn on the whiteboard,” Kurt says. 

“Oh, yeah, sometimes, you can convince Schue he meant for you to go to the auditorium, if someone writes that on the whiteboard before he gets in here,” Puck offers. “That’s also important.”

“We have notes for you guys!” Finn announces. “Well, not all of you. Alicia, here’s your copy,” he says, handing a packet of stapled papers to Alicia. “And Mandy, you get one, too. And, uh,” he looks down at the third packet in his hand. “Taylor! You look responsible! Also, I know your name, so that helps, too!”

Taylor laughs but takes the packet. “There’s a first time for everything.”

The Cheerio that sang ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ looks at them all appraisingly. “So… can we see something? A performance, I mean?”

“Sure!” Finn says, then looks at Mike. “I mean, uh. Hang on a second!” He leans towards Mike and they talk quietly for a minute or two, before Finn pops back up and says, “Mike says ‘Human’ and it’s important to listen to your choreographer.” He throws Puck a big grin as he says it. 

“I sense a conspiracy,” Puck says to Kurt, who nods. 

They move the piano to the side and a few chairs out of the way, then hook up someone’s iPod to the sound system and take their starting positions. Puck would be a little afraid of this, since it’s been months since they’ve done this specific routine, but everyone falls back into place more or less immediately.

Puck _knows_ there’s a conspiracy, though, when he sees too many wide grins on too many face. He looks at Kurt and shakes his head ruefully. “Shall we?”

“Oh, we’d hate to disappoint, wouldn’t we?” Kurt grins back, and so when the moment arrives in the music, Puck lifts Kurt and manages to get him almost as high as when they were in practice. 

When the song ends, the twelve of them turn to the new kids. “Like that?” Kurt asks. 

“Well, holy shit!” Brooklyn announces. “We have to learn how to do _that_?”

“You can skip the lifting,” Puck offers. 

“It’s all upper body strength,” Finn says, dismissively. “Just use a spotter.”

Puck shakes his head. “ _Now_ he advocates spotters.”

“I think I’m starting to understand why they all call each other ‘asshole’,” the kid who played piano during auditions says. 

“It’s not all of us,” Mike assures the guy. “It’s just the ‘special’ ones,” he finishes, and he even makes air quotes around ‘special’.

Puck shakes his head as he looks at Mike. “You know, you sound jealous.” Puck grins. “But I thought you weren’t into that… asshole.”

 

Because Kurt doesn’t even have an exam in the morning on Thursday, Puck has to remind himself to make two drinks, not three, and to make Finn’s alongside his own Americano. At least he only has to take one more English class ever again after this morning, and both he and Finn have the afternoon free. 

Puck’s English exam is actually easier than he expects – either that, or he actually bombs it and he only thinks it was easy. Either way, his English teacher lets them leave ahead of the bell if they’re finished, so Puck goes and leans against Finn’s locker, because he’s not really sure where Finn’s third period class is. 

“You decorating my locker with yourself?” Finn asks. 

“I am a quality decoration,” Puck argues. “Can’t do too much better.”

“Better than a drawing of a dick, anyway,” Finn says. “So there’s that.”

“Yeah, you can’t really do too much with a two-dimensional dick,” Puck nods. 

“Put a crown on it, apparently, but I think that’s about it.”

“I still think an actual dick’s got more versatility.” Puck smirks at Finn. “Don’t you?”

“I dunno, dude. I don’t give random dicks a lot of thought, so I haven’t formed a theory or whatever,” Finn shrugs. “I mean, you know. Sample size or whatever.”

“What about specific ones?”

“Yeah, those are good.”

“Why don’t you expand on that, in about ten minutes?”

“Just don’t expect poetry or anything,” Finn says. “I think we’ve figured out I probably shouldn’t write songs or poems.”

“Oh, did you require words for that?” Puck asks, grinning. 

“Hmm… I think no.”

“Good.” They reach Finn’s truck and Puck climbs in, dropping his backpack on the floor in front of him. Finn grabs the front of Puck’s shirt and hauls him across the seat, slamming his mouth against Puck’s, tongue thrusting inside. After only a few seconds, Finn releases him and then cranks the truck.

“Sorry,” Finn says. “Had to do that first.”

“Wasn’t complaining.”

Finn takes them through a drive-through on the way home and buys them both a pop, then they head back to the house. Kurt’s already left for his exam over at OSU-Lima, and there are no cars in the driveway or garage, but Puck still yells out a quick “hello?” just in case when they walk in. 

No one answers, so Puck turns to Finn and grins. “Empty house.”

“You know, even if somebody did come home before they were supposed to, I bet we’d hear the car and could get upstairs pretty fast,” Finn says. “You know, if we just stayed right here.”

“Stayed right here, huh?” Puck steps closer to Finn. “And did what?”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to do too much,” Finn says. “Other than not fall over, I guess.”

“I can probably manage that. I hope so, at least.”

“Then take your clothes off before I do it and, I dunno, break them or something,” Finn says, pulling off his T-shirt. 

“Last I checked,” Puck says, doing the same with his own T-shirt and then unfastening his jeans, “my clothes weren’t made of glass or anything.” He pushes his jeans and underwear down, then steps out of them. “That’d be pretty uncomfortable, actually.”

Finn rolls his eyes while he kicks his own jeans and underwear to the side. “Asshole, you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, you like my asshole.”

Finn blushes slightly, then says, “Yeah, well. Do we need to go upstairs for _supplies_ or what?”

Puck crosses back to where he dropped his backpack and rifles through it for a minute before tossing a bottle at Finn. “Not necessary.”

“Dude, you officially rock,” Finn says. “Now get your ass back over here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Puck laughs, walking back over to Finn. “What were you going to do if I didn’t?”

“Come get you. Duh.”

“Maybe I should have stayed over there, then.” Puck takes another step forward, so that he’s almost touching Finn. “What are you going to do now that I’m over here?”

“Mmm. Keep you here,” Finn says. He puts one arm out, wrapping it around Puck’s waist, and pulls him close. “That ok?”

“Hmm. Yeah.” Puck looks up and grins. “That’s it, though?”

“Nope.” Finn leans down and says, right into Puck’s ear, “Gonna lean you over this sofa and fuck you. Sound good?”

“Fuck. Yes.”

Finn starts walking Puck backwards until the backs of his legs hit the sofa arm, then Finn takes him by the shoulder and turns him, pushing him forward over the arm of the sofa. Puck can hear the sound of Finn flipping open the lid on the lube.

“You want fingers first?” 

Puck shakes his head. “Nah.” He looks over his shoulder. “Just fuck me already.”

“Sorta hoping you’d say that,” Finn says, then he’s pushing into Puck, hard and fast. “Fuck, baby.”

“Fuck is right,” Puck grunts, shifting his weight and then squeezing around Finn. 

“ _Fuck_ , Puck!” Finn moves faster, his hands gripping Puck’s hips. “You feel so fucking good.”

Puck closes his eyes, letting his hips rock with each of Finn’s thrusts. “Just like that, yeah, fuck.”

Finn speeds up, pulling out and slamming back inside Puck. One hand travels from Puck’s hip to his cock, stroking him in time to Finn’s thrusts, as Finn starts babbling, “Puck, baby, love you, love you, fuckfuckfuck, _mine_.”

Puck nods a little, tightening around Finn again as Finn pushes in with each stroke. “Fuck, Finn, fuck.”

“Puck,” Finn says, drawing out the word. “Come on, come on. Baby, please, fuck, come on, come with me.” His hips move almost erratically, his hand still moving over Puck’s cock. 

Puck comes a few seconds later, crying out loudly, even if he couldn’t say what he said or if it was even a word. Finn yells “fuck!” after another half a thrust, coming too, then slumping forward over Puck. 

Puck holds still for a long minute, then shrugs a little. “You’re kinda heavy, dude.”

“Sorry,” Finn says. He doesn’t actually sound all that sorry, but he does stand back up, sliding out of Puck. “Watch some TV?”

“Movie? It’s soap opera hour.” Puck shakes his head. 

“Let’s see if there’s anything new on Netfli— oh, shit, dude. Did you get come on the sofa?”

Puck laughs, because really? How else do you react to that question? “I have no fucking idea,” he admits. “I wasn’t really looking at the time.”

“Oh, fuck, you totally did,” Finn says. “Oh, shit. What do we do about it?”

“Wipe it up?” Puck shrugs. “Does it stain?”

“’Cause I have so much experience coming on sofas?” Finn asks, looking exasperated. “It’s that microfiber stuff, everything ruins it!”

“I don’t know, K always throws the sheets in the washer!” Puck defends himself. “But I don’t guess we can throw the sofa in the washer.” He frowns. 

“I’m texting Kurt,” Finn says. “He’ll tell us how to fix it.” He leans over and rifles through the pocket of his discarded jeans until he finds his phone. Once he has it, he starts texting quickly. “Maybe he can sneak out of his exam early.”

“Dude, he’s in the middle of his exam!” Puck shakes his head. “He was already going to be here like, two or three hours before Burt or her.”

“But what if it’s harder to get out when it dries?” Finn says. “I’m just trying to keep us out of trouble, dude!”

“We could spill some pop on top of it?” Puck suggests, pulling out his own phone and starting to google.

Finn sighs louds and flops onto the sofa. “I’m waiting for Kurt. I’m going to do whatever the _wrong_ website says to do, probably, and then it’ll be a fuck shit stack of sofa drama.”

“Reupholster with a more baby–friendly fabric?” Puck suggests. “We could tell them it’s a baby present a few months early.”

“Nope, lying here, watching TV, waiting for Kurt,” Finn insists, waving his hand at Puck to get him to come closer. “Come here. Lie down and wait for Kurt with me. It’s so much better here.”

Puck snorts, but lies down. “Nice of you to take the wet spot, at least.”

Finn rolls his eyes and moves Puck around until Puck is sprawled on top of him, at which point Finn grabs the throw from the back of the sofa and drapes it over both of them. “Ok, let’s find something on Netflix that isn’t too stupid.”

“Your Netflix is always confused, dude. Too many different people for it to know what to recommend.”

“It doesn’t understand us. We broke it.”

“There, stop on that one,” Puck says. “It looks funny. And it has Jim Carrey _and_ Ewan McGregor.”

“Sure, we can watch whatever,” Finn says, starting _I Love You Phillip Morris_ and then setting the remote down on the coffee table before wrapping his arms around Puck. 

It’s not until the movie is almost over that Puck realizes maybe he should have investigated more thoroughly, because it’s based on a true story and they’re criminals and there’s no happy ending. “Dammit,” Puck mutters. 

“You ok?”

“You know I turn off _Moulin Rogue_ before the end? I don’t watch movies without a happy ending, dude.”

“Aww, dude, is the movie making you sad?” Finn wraps his arms around Puck a little more tightly. “I’m sorry. We should watch Power Rangers or something until Kurt gets home.”

Puck scowls and pinches Finn’s side. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Hey! I wasn’t,” Finn says. “Seriously. I’m sorry the movie didn’t end happy. I know you hate that. And seriously, we can put on Power Rangers. Netflix has, like, _every_ series, dude.”

“Oh, okay,” Puck says, mollified. “And I’m a little worried that you know that, actually.”

“I know many things,” Finn says. “Like the sound of Kurt’s Nav.”

“Sofa–cleaning time.” 

“Sofa–cleaning time _after_ he gets in here and tells us to get up,” Finn amends. 

“That’s not going to take long,” Puck points out, because the garage door is already going up, and the sound of Kurt taking off his shoes isn’t far behind. 

“You realize I was _taking an exam_ and I get a text that says ‘how do u get come off of microfiber?’ which made me _laugh_ in the middle of a silent room?” Kurt asks, standing in the doorway and raising an eyebrow.

“It was time–sensitive?” Finn offers.

“I told him we should get it reupholstered to something baby–friendly. Or spill pop on top of it.” Puck shrugs. 

“Which I’m pretty sure they’d notice,” Finn adds.

“But it wouldn’t be a sex stain.”

Kurt giggles. “Okay, you two. Up. Finn, go get the peroxide from upstairs? And Puck, vinegar–water solution.”

“Got it, bossofus,” Finn says, giving Puck a shove that’s probably meant to be gentle. 

Puck picks himself up and frowns at Finn for a second before heading towards the kitchen. “You still think you’re the same size you were in fifth grade, dude.”

“Did you two watch a movie completely naked?” Kurt asks, but it sounds more like he just wants confirmation. 

“Yes,” Finn says. “It was better like that. Well, Puck didn’t like the movie, but the watching naked part was good.”

Puck shrugs. “Wasn’t a happy ending,” he explains, heading into the kitchen to find the vinegar and mix it with some water. By the time he gets back, Kurt’s found some rags and Finn has the peroxide. 

“We’ll try the vinegar first,” Kurt decides, and hands a rag to Puck and Finn each. 

 

Puck is pretty sure he’s never actually been in the Allen County Memorial Auditorium, but that’s where the Awards Night is, and even though Puck’s pretty sure he’s not going to be getting any awards, they’re still all there, sitting in the seats marked ‘Reserved for Seniors’ and wondering what exactly goes on at Awards Night. Puck’s wondering that, anyway, even if no one else is. 

It starts out with Figgins insisting on all of the seniors standing up, and all the parents and friends and whatever clap for them, which is kind of weird. Puck nudges Kurt. “What exactly are we doing here again?”

“It was actually just another excuse for you to tie our ties,” Kurt whispers back. “It’s mostly recognizing things we all already know about. Oh, and superlatives.”

“Oh.” Puck shrugs. 

“Quiet down, children,” Figgins says, after the applause has apparently reached an acceptable limit. “I will now read to you the list of superlatives, chosen from the McKinley graduating class of 2012, as voted by your fellow classmates.”

“He makes it sound like he’s so very excited,” Kurt says dryly.

“I will begin the students voted as Friendliest. Your Friendliest students are…”

Figgins reads off two names that Puck doesn’t recognize, and he leans towards Kurt, speaking loudly enough that Finn should be able to hear. “Who are those people?”

Kurt shrugs and points to the two people standing. “Those two.”

Puck nods. “Again, who are those people?” Then he frowns. “Wait, did I even vote for superlatives?”

“She’s in my Spanish class,” Finn says. “She is _not_ friendly. She’s really good at Spanish, though.”

Figgins reads off the names for Most Outgoing and Most School Spirit, and Puck doesn’t recognize those kids, either, though he thinks maybe the girl that wins Most School Spirit was a Cheerio. Maybe not, though. Most of them are hard to recognize out of uniform. 

“And next, Best Dressed. Your Best Dressed students are Miss Brittany S. Pierce and Mister Kurt Hummel.”

Kurt actually looks surprised, which is kind of funny, but then, maybe he was thinking that no one would recognize his fashion sense. Puck nudges his knee and he sees Finn doing the same thing, prodding him to stand up as everyone applauds. Puck looks down the row at Brittany, who stands and gives the audience a Miss America–style wave. 

“We could have told everyone that, though,” Puck says to Finn. 

“And the award for ‘Most Obvious Award’ goes to,” Finn whispers. 

Puck laughs as Figgins starts to talk again, this time announcing “Most Athletic,” apparently. 

“Miss Lauren Zizes and Mister Sam Evans,” Figgins reads from his list. 

Puck leans forward to look all the way down the row at Sam, who stands up with his hands in his pockets, looking around and smiling. Lauren smirks and offers a ‘wussup’ nod before sitting down again.

“And now, Most Intelligent. Your Most Intelligent students are Miss Marcie Jackson and Mister Artie Abrams.”

Puck has no idea who Marcie Jackson is, and he doesn’t recognize the girl that stands up, either, but Mike and Sam literally hoist Artie up in the air, holding him and his chair at about shoulder level. 

The people that are Most Creative are apparently also Most Invisible, because they don’t even look familiar, and beside him, Kurt grumbles a bit about the visual arts getting precedence under the heading of creative. 

“And lastly,” Figgins drones, “your students voted Most Likely to Succeed: Miss Rachel Berry—” The rest of Figgins’ words are drowned out by Rachel’s loud squeal. 

“She does know it’s a prediction, not a guarantee, right?” Puck laughs. Kurt stifles a laugh of his own and shakes his head, and Finn claps politely while rolling his eyes. 

There’s a lot more standing and clapping, for various teams and clubs and if people are going to college and other things that Puck tunes out. There is a nice surprise when the twelve of them get little plaques for being National Champions, since the trophy stays with the school. 

Puck thinks that surely they should be nearly done when Figgins has Ms. P come up to the microphone. “Hello, everyone,” she says, as she adjusts the microphone. “I know everybody’s looking forward to going home, but first, I wanted to congratulate the McKinley students who have been awarded academic, athletic, and other performance–based scholarships to colleges this year. We have more student receiving scholarships this year than from any previous graduating class at McKinley High School!” She pauses for a moment while the audience applauds. “So, if those students receiving scholarships would please stand, so we can all recognize you for your hard work!”

The whole row of glee club slowly stands up, Mike and Sam lifting Artie up again, and Puck looks around to see Karofsky and Lauren standing up, too, along with about seven other kids that Puck doesn’t really recognize. 

Nothing else interesting happens the rest of the evening, if the first part of the evening could be said to be interesting, but they do manage to convince Burt and Carole _again_ that they’re getting together with friends, and the house is dark when they get back. Again. 

 

When Puck walks into his history classroom with Finn, he’s expecting to take a final exam, but instead Mrs. Vey has “The World in Jeopardy” written on the board, along with directions to form teams of four. 

“That’s convenient,” Puck says to Finn. 

“’Cause there’s four of us!” Finn agrees. “How much jeopardy do you think the world’s actually in?”

“That depends on whether we’re in charge or not, I think.” 

“More or less with us in charge?”

“I haven’t actually decided that yet. Probably the deciding factor is how much we listen to K.”

“He calls you to figure out the tip, we call him to find out whether or not we should bomb Russia,” Finn says. “I’d call it square.”

Puck shrugs. “Pretty much.” 

And they do play Jeopardy in teams, instead of a final exam, with the questions covering all the stuff she told them to study for the actual exam. It still takes all two hours, with the final round of questions ending just before the bell. They don’t do badly; third out of seven teams is pretty good, really, though it helped that Finn cleaned up the entire art and assassinations categories. 

“Mr. Hudson, I’m impressed by your knowledge of fine art!” Mrs. Vey says, at the end of class.

“It’s important to know that art stuff,” Finn says, with a casual shrug. “Also, I watch a lot of _White Collar_.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Vey smiles after a moment. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“Now it’s time for PFLAG!” Brittany says. “It’s going to be the saddest party ever!”

“‘This will be the last time’,” Puck quotes as he nods, and the four of them walk outside and across to the stadium. There’s some music playing through the speakers as people make their way over. 

“This is one gloomy looking party, dude,” Finn says, and that’s a fairly accurate assessment of what they see. Tina is sobbing all over Taylor, who keeps patting her on the back almost gingerly. The Browns, Rick, Casey, and Karofsky all look absolutely miserable, which Puck can’t understand, because other than Casey, Puck didn’t think any of them were really that close with Karofsky. Brooklyn and her ‘Girlfriend’, whose name Puck still hasn’t caught, grab Finn and drag him over to their gaggle of maybe–dykes, where Puck can hear Brooklyn shouting about Team Soups. 

After about ten minutes, Kurt directs everyone to sit in a circle on the grass, so they make a huge circle right around the fifty yard line. “Before we do introductions,” Kurt begins. 

“I have to make a presentation,” Puck finishes. “I used my connections or whatever to go first.” He grins. “So, Brittany.” Brittany looks at Puck expectantly and claps her hands. “Two things. First, the game is over.” 

“That was the _best_ game,” Brittany sighs dreamily.

“Secondly,” Puck continues, digging in his backpack for a moment. “You definitely won.” He pulls out a ribbon he found on etsy and a small plastic trophy cup from the Dollar Spot at the Target in Columbus. 

“I knew it! I knew I’d win!” Brittany squeals. “I was _so_ good at this game!”

“Yeah, you were, Britt,” Santana says with a grin. “Puckerman actually sucked at it.”

Puck raises his middle finger and shakes it in Santana’s direction, then nods in Kurt’s direction. “Okay.”

Kurt laughs. “Introductions… or I suppose farewells, for some of us. If you’d like to share why you came to PFLAG, or why you kept coming, or what it’s meant to you, anything like that.” He pauses before doing his own. “Two years ago, I would have told you I was the only student at this school that wasn’t straight. I was definitely the only out student. When I agreed to start this chapter of PFLAG, I hoped that it would be educational for straight students, and that others of us would find some support. I had no idea we would have so many people or do so much, so. Thank you.”

A few people share their thoughts, including a still–weepy Tina, whom Mike is cuddling, and then they come around to Santana. 

“I’m still glad I came out to all of you first, but then again, someone in here violated the rules,” Santana says. “So I guess you could say PFLAG was a mixed blessing at first.” She wrinkles her nose. “But I also… whoever’s taking over next year, this group is better than some, definitely, okay? But don’t forget that there’s more letters than ‘G’ in the soup.”

Brittany leans over and hugs Santana, then says, “Hi! I’m Brittany and I’m a winner.” She brandishes her ribbon and her trophy. “I’m bisexual and because of PFLAG, I never have to sleep in the hall again.”

Some of the A/V club kids say a few things, including Lauren, and then they come around to good ol’ Roger, who at least will hopefully focus on singing next year, and not pilfering cell phones. 

“Hi, I’m Roger, and I came to this meeting for the first time because _he_ told me I had to.” Roger points at Finn, who grins widely and gives a thumbs up. “But I’ve actually really enjoyed it and, uh, it might turn out to be sort of helpful for me in the future.” He shrugs, but doesn’t explain further. 

Alicia’s sitting next to Roger, and Puck figures she was probably talking to him before they started. She says a few words and then beams at Rick. 

“Hey, I’m Rick! I think we’ve established that PFLAG de-stupided me. Sometimes I swear, me and Taylor are like the only straight dudes I know anymore, but you know, that’s really not so bad. I met my best friends and my girlfriend through here, so it works out pretty good for straight dudes, too, so spread the word.”

There’s a good chuckle around the circle at that, and it takes a minute before it’s quiet enough for Brown to start talking. “Well, you guys somehow got me to spend a full year with you people, and that’s pretty impressive. Now, I’ve had my share of setbacks. For starters, my car got crepe–papered by some fools calling themselves Snap, Crackle, and Pop.”

The entirety of the glee club starts laughing, and most of them look over at Puck, Kurt, and Finn. Finn offers another wide grin and thumbs up, and Brown glares at him and says, “That was a pitiful display of bow–tying, Hudson. Just pitiful.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow in Brown’s direction and shakes his head minutely, and after a moment, the focus of the circle shifts to a still–miserable looking Casey. He draws himself up and gives the group a wan smile. 

“Um. So, I’m Casey. Everybody knows what happened to me and, um. Probably everybody can guess what might have happened if I hadn’t had PFLAG in my life. So. I guess that’s really all I have to say.” He sniffles a little, but stays mostly dry-eyed. “So, thank you. And, I guess I’ll see some of you next year!” Karofsky’s sitting next to him, but he doesn’t say anything, just raises his hand briefly in a truncated wave. 

There’s a brief moment of silence before Taylor speaks up. “Yeah, I’m Taylor, and when I started this school year, I pretty much planned on trying to fly under the radar for four years of high school. The problem with that, though, is I never knew if people suspected and if they did, were they people who would gossip or what? So I spent way too much time worrying about not being out. And then when we started the school board thing I realized that I didn’t want to spend three more years looking over my shoulder. The thing that’s helped most, though, is when my friends have had questions, I’ve had a place to send them. So.” He shrugs a little. “And they actually show up.” He grins at a couple of the guys sitting nearby, who bump fists with him in lieu of actually speaking. 

Some of the maybe–dykes say a few things, including some confirmation that at least two or three of them are actual lesbians, and then it’s Brooklyn’s turn. She leads in with another whoop of, “Team Soups!” to which the other lesbians respond, “Hell yeah!” 

“I’m Brooklyn and I think PFLAG is an awesome place to come and hang out. Also, it gave me a chance to prove the athletic superiority of lesbians and gays over old, fat, straight doctors and nurses. And possibly one ringer from OSU!”

Some of the others laugh, and some of them look confused as they laugh, and then a few people talk before it gets back around to Finn. 

“In case we haven’t met,” Finn says, “I’m Finn Hudson, and I’ve been your PFLAG bouncer this year!” About half the group choruses, “Hi Finn!” and Finn responds, “Hi, PFLAG!” before his face becomes more serious. “Honestly, I went around kicking a bunch of asses this year. I got detention once, and I got suspended once, and I even got away with it a couple of times, but ultimately, none of that made anything like the kind of difference that getting that policy changed with the school board’s gonna make. So, Tina, all of you guys who talked at the meetings, and Kurt… you guys are the ones that might actually have done some good for this place. If it stops sucking around here, it’s because of you guys.” Finn turns to to Puck and grins again. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Noah Puckerman!”

Puck rolls his eyes. “Asshole.”

“Yeah, you love it, asshole,” Finn says under his breath.

“Right. I’m Puck.” He looks around and grins wryly. “So about half of you actually know exactly why I’ve been coming all year, and it wasn’t just because of the food. Especially not when it was vegan week.” He pauses when a few people laugh, and Rachel makes a face at him. “But no. I’m actually here because I’m gay.” He shrugs. and then turns towards Kurt, as if no one should be reacting. 

“You shouldn’t joke about that, Puck,” Mercedes says. 

“What, you need proof?” Puck asks her. 

“If you’d seen his Halloween costume, you’d know he’s not joking,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Those _shorts_.”

“You could ask my boyfriend, if you insist,” Puck offers. 

Brown calls out, “Oh, Miz Jones, I think you should. I think you just _should_ ask his boyfriend.” The people in the know offer a general murmur of consensus. 

Puck glances at Quinn, who is sitting there quietly with a small smile on her face, like she’s just waiting to see what comes next. 

“Puckerman,” Lauren shouts. “You are _such_ a drama queen!”

“The best queen did win,” Puck shoots back. 

Kurt nods. “Yes, he did.”

Mercedes freezes and lifts up one hand. “Wait.”

“This is why I win at the game, and you don’t,” Brittany explains, matter–of–factly.

“Apparently we aren’t as obvious as we’d think we are,” Puck says to Kurt with a shrug. 

Now Mercedes is glaring at Kurt. “What… how long… why did I not know about this? You should have told me, Kurt!”

“Not my secret to tell,” Kurt says calmly. “However, your dismissive comments at the idea that I could possibly be seeing anyone were duly noted.”

“How many people knew about this?” she demands, glaring around the circle. “Well?”

“Wait,” Rick suddenly blurts out. “Was I the _only_ straight guy on the football team?”

A smug–looking Brown pats him on one shoulder, and surprised–looking Alicia pats him on the other. “It’s alright, Foots,” Brown says. “I’ll bring you up to speed later.”

“I didn’t know,” Quinn says quietly. “But I don’t suppose it was actually our business, after all.”

Mercedes glares even harder at the other four girls in glee club. “That’s why you all were so odd–acting about Allison in New York.” Then she turns to Sam. “Did you know about this?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Sam looks a little nervous. “Since um, a month ago?”

“What?” Mercedes squawks, and apparently Sam decides that retreating is the best idea, because he stands up, tugging Mercedes to her feet. 

“We’re just uh. Gonna go,” Sam says, as Mercedes continues ranting. He grimaces apologetically at Kurt and Puck both, then leads Mercedes away from the group. 

“Well. That was dramatic,” Puck shrugs, and there’s some nervous laughter. 

“Right up your alley, then,” Lauren says.

“Seriously, how come I didn’t know about this?” Rick asks. 

“’Cause of PFLAG rules, Foots!” Brown says.

“Because you’re spectacularly unobservant?” Brooklyn suggests.

“There’s really only two other items on the agenda before we merely socialize,” Kurt announces. “First, Artie?”

“I’m sure you’re all aware of the documentary that Lauren and I have been making about the school board and the policies, but today we have a fun activity for all of you, that we wanted to include as part of the credits,” Artie explains. “We have a table set up over there, in front of that curtain, and on that table you’ll find an array of eight familiar letters. Feel free to pick up one or more, and we’ll just keep the camera rolling until everybody’s had a chance. Oh, and we are hoping to premiere the documentary at the Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival in July, so we hope everybody will come out and support the film!”

Everyone claps and people look interestedly at the curtain and table set up over by the stands. 

“The other item of importance, though,” Kurt says slowly, “involves you, Daniel Rickenbacker.”

“Oh, shit, what’d I do now?” Rick says, looking a little panicky. “I’m de-stupided, remember?”

“No, it involves those,” Kurt says, gesturing to the uprights and then pulling a football from his bag. “You and I are going to see who the best PFLAG kicker is.”

“Ohh, shit,” Rick repeats. 

Kurt stands up and smirks. “Come on, Rick. We’ll start at the twenty-five and go back from there.”

And that’s pretty much exactly what they do. Some people start going in front of the camera and holding up letters while Rick and Kurt both put the football between the uprights from the twenty-five and then both the thirty and the thirty-five. They both miss at the forty, though, so they go back to the thirty-six. At the thirty-seven yard line, Rick goes first and misses, and Kurt just smirks before doing a tiny part of the ‘Single Ladies’ dance and then sending the football flying perfectly in the middle. 

“Still nailing it!” Finn yells in Brooklyn’s direction.

“Team Soups!” she screams back across the field. 

After Kurt puts the football away, he and Finn and Puck head towards the table set-up, where there are, in fact, eight letters scattered across the table. Kurt goes first, walking into the shot, picking up the ‘G’ and holding it front of him with both hands for a moment before putting it down and walking back out of the shot on the other side.

Finn walks through and looks down at the letters, looks up at the camera and grins and shrugs, and walks back in the direction that he came from. 

“Finn!” Kurt says, shaking his head. 

“What?” Finn asks. 

“You can’t skip picking up a letter if you’re going to bother,” Kurt says. 

“Ok, ok. Fine!” Finn says, then grumbles, “bossofme” before walking back through and picking up the ‘A’ and holding it up with another big grin. 

Puck laughs and walks in front of the camera while he’s still laughing, picking up the ‘G’ and holding it up with one hand before setting it down and walking back out. As the three of them are still standing there, Brooklyn and ‘Girlfriend’ walk up to the table together. Brooklyn picks up the ‘L’ and ‘Girlfriend’ picks up the ‘B’ and then the two of them kiss before setting their letters back down. 

“So, is that really it?” Brooklyn asks, as she and ‘Girlfriend’ walk up next to the three of them. 

“We’re going to eat at Old Barn,” Kurt answers her. “And I think some others are as well. So yes, that’s it, unless you want to come take up a lot of tables at Old Barn.”

 

Even though they’re still stuffed from the buffet at Old Barn, Kurt and Puck head to the apartment around dinnertime, because it’s also Hannah’s birthday. It’s probably good that they hid her presents at Kurt’s from the very beginning, because otherwise she would have found them. As it is, Puck holds them over his head after they get inside. 

“Calm down, squirt.”

“I don’t want to calm down! I want to open presents!” Hannah demands. Then she grins at Kurt. “Hi, Kurt!”

“Hello, Hannah,” Kurt responds, sounding amused. “Happy birthday!” 

“Thanks! I’m nine today!” Hannah grins. “And you’re _graduating_ on Sunday! And my party’s tomorrow!”

“Hello, Noah,” Rina calls. “Hello, Kurt.” 

“Hey, Mom.” Puck walks into the kitchen. “Need any help?” His mom may be certifiably crazy, but at least she doesn’t give him any crap about not being straight, and Puck has a feeling Rina wouldn’t have freaked out if _she’d_ walked in on the three of them. 

“No, Hannah just wanted a lasagna,” Rina answers. “I think she thought it would mean getting to the cake and the presents that much quicker.” 

Puck and Kurt both laugh. “Yeah, probably so,” Puck agrees. 

Hannah spends the entirety of the meal talking about her last day at Independence and how it’s okay because Rebecca and Stevie are going to Liberty next year, too, plus everything they did the last week of school. None of it sounds particularly educational, especially not compared to taking final exams, but that’s just how it works, Puck figures. 

“And I can’t wait to see Nana on Sunday and everyone said they’re coming to my party, Noah!” Hannah scrapes her plate and pushes it away. “Can we open presents now, Mom?”

“Don’t you want us to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?” Rina asks. “And blow out the candles on your cake?”

Puck’s a little surprised that there’s actually a cake to put candles on, and yeah, a quick glance confirms it’s from the bakery at Ray’s, but it’s more than Rina’s done for Hannah’s birthday before. 

Rina puts nine candles in it and the three of them sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a beaming Hannah before abandoning the table and heading to the living room. 

“Presents!” Hannah’s bouncing a little as she sits on the couch, looking at the four packages waiting on the table. She grabs the smallest package first, quickly reading the tag that identifies it from Rina, and then ripping open the paper. She squeals excitedly when she realizes it’s another game for her DS. “Thanks, Mom!”

“You’re welcome, Hannah,” Rina answers, then picks up another, larger package. “Here, this is from me as well.”

Hannah rips into that package, too, finding a silicone baking set or something, which is apparently totally exciting, too. “Can I make something tomorrow night, Mom?”

“We’ll see how tired you are after your party, all right?” Rina answers, instead of saying yes or no, and Puck thinks it’s kind of funny how he realizes that fact now. He’s not sure when that awareness started, but it’s crystal-clear and obvious suddenly. 

“Sure, Mom!” Hannah takes that as acquiescence, apparently, and picks up the larger of the two packages from Puck and Kurt. “Oooh, what is it?”

“Open it and see, squirt,” Puck snorts. It was probably ridiculous how much he’d spent on her birthday the year before, on his own; and with Kurt this year? Puck thinks they probably spent way too much for a nine year old. On the other hand, he can remember his own birthdays after Zeke left, hoping for something just a little bit more than what his mom could afford. And no, maybe it wasn’t the smartest way to spend their money, especially with New York and its high rents looming, but it’s one thing Puck _can_ do for Hannah, so he will. 

Hannah gasps when she finally finishing opening the present. “Oh! It’s Rebecca! Oh, Mom, _look_!” She hands the box to Rina with a huge grin. “Can you get her out, please?” she asks, then flings herself at Puck. “Thank you Noah! Thank you Kurt! Did you get her _in New York_?”

“We did,” Puck nods. “At the American Girl store.”

“Oooh, you’ll take me there when I visit! Right?”

“Sure,” Puck laughs, then pushes the other present towards her. “One more.”

Hannah squeals and picks it up, ripping into it even faster, and then she squeals even more loudly when she sees what’s in it, another outfit and another set of accessories or whatever for Rebecca. “I love it! Mom, she’s so cool!”

“She’s lovely, Hannah,” Rina agrees. “Make sure you take good care of her, though, okay?”

“I will, Mom!” Hannah assures her, and then Rina smirks suddenly and goes into her bedroom, returning with one more package. Puck _had_ wondered what happened to what she’d had them pick up. 

“Here, Hannah,” Rina says, and Hannah tears into it to find one last thing for Rebecca, pajamas. With that, she gathers up all her boxes and runs into her room, shouting her thanks back at them and exclaiming that she needs to call her _friend_ Rebecca right away. Rina laughs. “I think she liked her gifts.”

Kurt nods and grins, and Puck laughs as well. “Yeah, Mom, I think that’s a safe bet,” Puck agrees. 

“So, Noah,” Rina says. “I suppose you’re glad to see graduation approaching.” She sighs. “We haven’t seen much of you, you know. I thought you were going to try to stay here a night or two?”

Puck sighs, because yeah, he’d said that, but the appeal of sleeping alone on an air mattress when he can be sleeping with Kurt and, part of the night, Finn, in an actual bed? It’s really low. Nonexistent, actually. And just sleeping there doesn’t mean he’s actually interacting with his mom or Hannah either one. 

“I’ll come over next Tuesday, okay?” he finally says. “In fact, um. We’re going to Columbus on Monday.”

“Oh?” Rina glances at them curiously, not seeming to understand the significance of Puck’s statement. “I’m surprised you aren’t working.”

“Swapped out a shift,” Puck explains. “Remember what I told you? About, um. Shelby?”

“Shel— oh. _Oh_. On. Monday?”

Puck nods, biting his lip a little. He’s trying so hard to focus on Hannah’s party and then graduation and the ‘glee club nocturnal graduation celebration’ at Rachel’s, and not on what he’s going to do when he wakes up on Monday morning, because if he thinks about it too much, he’s not going to get through everything else. “We’re driving over in the morning. Spending the day.” Puck shrugs. “We won’t get back until late, though, so. I’ll come over Tuesday night?”

“Okay.” Rina nods quickly, and Kurt moves his hand from Puck’s leg to wrap his fingers with Puck’s and squeeze them. Puck squeezes back gratefully; thinking about is hard enough, but talking about it, even with Rina, is even harder. “Thank you for telling me, Noah.” She sighs a little. “Can you send me an email soon with your schedule over the summer and when you’re leaving? Perhaps the two of you could come for dinner one more night a week?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kurt finally answers with a nod, when he realizes that Puck’s just done talking, and then he calmly reaches for Puck’s backpack. “Rina, could we each have a glass of water?”

“Oh, of course! And I’ll start cutting the cake, too,” Rina offers, standing up. She brings the water and thankfully goes right back into the kitchen, as Kurt slips Puck one of his Xanax. 

“We’ll eat cake and then I’ll take you home and put you to bed,” Kurt murmurs. “Okay, baby?”

Puck sips at his water and nods. “Yeah,” he replies. “Sounds good. As long as the cake’s chocolate. Otherwise you can just take me home.”

 

Kurt flips off the lamp and then quietly pulls his door shut as he leaves the bedroom; Puck’s already nearly asleep, and the next day is going to be busy enough. Kurt walks the short distance to Finn’s room and knocks on the door softly. “It’s me.”

Finn unlocks and opens the door. “Hey, you.”

Kurt slips in and steps to the side so Finn can close the door and lock it again. “Puck’s in bed,” Kurt explains, “and I’m going to go corner Dad about Pensacola, I think. Want to help me make cupcakes after that?”

“Cupcakes sound good,” Finn says, wrapping his arms around Kurt. He nuzzles the side of Kurt’s head and brushes his lips across Kurt’s ear, before whispering, “Can I lick the beaters?”

Kurt giggles and nods. “You can lick anything you like, darling.”

“Oh, yeah?” Finn takes a step forward, trapping Kurt between him and the door. “Anything?”

“Well, I wouldn’t advise licking a hot pan,” Kurt amends. “But I’m not adverse to your tongue personally.”

Finn licks the side of Kurt’s face, laughing. “Like that?”

Kurt lets out a short squeal, shaking his head. “If that’s what you enjoy,” he says a bit dubiously. 

“Well, you taste nice wherever, but nah. That’s not really what does it for me,” Finn says. 

“Did you want to show me what does?” Kurt asks, grinning. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Finn says, nodding his head seriously and slowly. 

“I have the time if you do.”

Finn grins, leans over to kiss the side of Kurt’s neck, then slowly slides down Kurt’s body until he’s on his knees in front of Kurt, his fingers already working on Kurt’s shorts, hooking in the waistband to pull them off Kurt’s hips. 

Kurt wiggles a little to let his shorts fall to the floor, then steps out of them, pushing them to the side with one foot. “See anything you like?” he can’t resist asking, smirking a little. 

Finn rolls his eyes, but his grin gets wider, and then his tongue laps at the underside of Kurt’s cock, his hands gripping Kurt’s hips. Kurt pushes forward just a bit, staring down at Finn with his lips slightly parted. 

“Take that as a yes,” he murmurs, moving his hands to Finn’s head and sliding his fingers through Finn’s hair. Finn’s lips wrap around Kurt’s cock, tongue still running along the underside, and Finn slowly takes more and more into his mouth. “Fuck, darling, your mouth feels so good.”

Finn moves his mouth faster, sliding down Kurt’s cock, and Kurt leans back against the door, pushing into Finn’s mouth. He tightens his fingers in Finn’s hair and tugs Finn forward, exhaling as Finn’s tongue continues to trace the same path. 

“Oh, god, Finn,” Kurt whispers. “Just right, darling, so good, right there.” He pulls Finn closer almost involuntarily. He can feel himself getting close, and Finn’s mouth seems to move even more quickly. Kurt’s hips snap forward and he realizes that he’s so close, so very close, and his dad and Carole are downstairs. He pulls one hand from Finn’s hair, his wrist flying in front of his mouth and just barely making it there before he comes, his cry muffled. His other fingers tighten in Finn’s hair and he knows he’s probably pulling it a little too hard before he slumps back against the door and his fingers relax, his other arm falling to his side. “Love you, darling,” Kurt murmurs softly. 

“Love you,” Finn says, grinning again as he stands up. “So, cupcakes?”

“I should probably talk to Dad _first_. In case we destroy anything in the kitchen, or in case she bought salted butter again and I tie her up to wait until the beginning of October for slaughter.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t kill her,” Finn says. “I mean, you’d definitely do time, even if you use the butter defense.”

“I could verbally eviscerate her!” Kurt grins. 

“Yeah, I’m not totally sure what that means, but I’ll provide your alibi if you need it,” Finn agrees. 

“Rip her to shreds with my words,” Kurt explains, slowly pulling his shorts back on. “But hopefully it won’t take long to convince Dad.”

“Hopefully not, because then, beach! And cupcakes!”

“But no cupcakes at the beach. Too much sand,” Kurt says ruefully. “Come down in about fifteen or so?”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure I don’t look like, you know,” Finn says. “Somebody who just did that.”

Kurt laughs. “I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t notice.” He unlocks Finn’s door and walks into the hallway, waiting until he hears the door lock again before going down the stairs. 

Burt’s in the living room with Carole, and when Kurt pokes his head in the door, he frowns at the utterly hideous maternity outfit that woman on screen is wearing. “Dad?” he says quietly. 

Burt looks up from the television almost eagerly. “What can I help you with, Kurt?”

“Do you have a minute? We still haven’t really talked about scheduling for the summer or anything.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Burt says. “Carole, honey, I’m going to step into the kitchen and talk to Kurt about his summer schedule. You can keep the movie going.”

“Oh, okay,” Carole says with a nod. “I know you’ve seen it before.”

Kurt walks into the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator, pulling out two beers and opening them before handing one to Burt. Burt looks at the beers and raises one eyebrow at Kurt, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Kurt shrugs once and then takes a sip from his beer. “I don’t think you and Finn worked out a schedule yet, either, did you?”

Burt takes a drink from his own beer, eyebrow still raised. “No, we haven’t done that either. I’ve got a feeling you have some thoughts on that?”

“Just didn’t want to assume. But there is a week we both want off.”

“Okay, isn’t that something Finn oughta talk to me about, too, if the two of you both have your plans for that week?”

“We have the same plans, Dad. Assuming no one objects. Finn, Puck and I want to go to the beach, mid-July.”

“That sounds like it would be fun. You heading up to Michigan?” 

“Down to Pensacola, actually. We wanted salt water.”

“Ah.” Burt takes another drink of his beer. “That’s quite a trek. I don’t think the time off’ll be a problem, though.”

“Puck has the route figured out; we can swap drivers fairly regularly, and Finn said we could take his truck to avoid putting more mileage on the Nav.” 

“Good suggestion,” Burt says, sounding impressed. “Yeah, taking Finn’s truck probably is the smart choice, though we’ve gotta give that old thing a once-over before you’re taking it that far.”

“Of course,” Kurt replies, because he’d do the same for whatever vehicle they used. “So that’s around the sixteenth of July, based on Finn’s workout schedule and everything. We thought we’d work the sixteenth and leave after that, come back the next Monday. It’ll give Finn a few days before.” Kurt stops. “Before Madison.”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright. I think that shouldn’t be a problem,” Burt says. “Last hurrah of the summer for you boys, that’ll be a fun trip.”

“We hope so, anyway,” Kurt agrees with a smile. “So I thought I’d work more or less what I did last summer, seven to four? Off Tuesdays and Saturdays?”

“Sure, that’ll work.”

“I think Finn mentioned wanting Tuesdays off as well,” Kurt said. “I told him I didn’t see why that would be a problem, as long as you and Danny were still there, but of course it’s up to you.”

“Uh huh,” Burt says. “It is up to me, but I don’t think Tuesdays’ll be a problem. What is it with you guys and Tuesdays?”

“Movie theatre’s emptier,” Kurt says off-handedly. “The pool and the mall and everything, too.”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense,” Burt says. 

Kurt can hear Finn thumping down the stairs as Burt finishes talking, and then Finn appears in the door with a wide grin. 

“So, cupcakes?”

“Cupcakes,” Kurt agrees, going back to the refrigerator and pulling out some butter, noting that it is at least unsalted, as well as a third beer, opening it and handing it to Finn. Finn looks at Burt with his guilty look, but takes the beer. Burt just sighs and shakes his head, finishing his own beer. 

“We’re talking about schedules,” Burt says. “You have any specific days you need off this summer, Finn?”

“Uh, maybe, I dunno. Tuesdays off would be good.”

“Yeah, Kurt mentioned that.” Burt nods and tosses his bottle into the recycling bin. “Any other day you need?”

Finn look at Kurt first. “Maybe Sunday?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Burt agrees. “And Kurt already talked to me about the beach. If you’ve got any days you need off for any of this upcoming college stuff, let me know.”

Finn nods and continues drinking his beer, turning slightly to the side every time he takes a sip, as though he were hiding it from Burt. “Yeah, I’ll let you know. There’s some kind of test thing? But I’ll get you those dates.”

“Test?” Kurt asks, pulling out bowls and measuring cups and the cupcake pans. 

“Some kind of placement tests to find out how dumb I am,” Finn explains. “I guess that’ll settle the question, right?”

“Stop it,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. “And also get the flour and the sugar and the cocoa down.”

“Can you repeat that list about ten times slower?” Finn asks, although he’s already pulling the ingredients down from the shelf. “Maybe spell that last one for me?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Really, Finn?”

Finn grins back at him. “That’s the chocolate one, right? Not the drug?”

Kurt laughs and looks over his shoulder at Burt, then drops his voice to a whisper. “Why do you think _we’re_ making the cupcakes?”

“Shit, what if they _do_ ask me about that when I get to Wisconsin?” Finn whispers back. “Seriously. Never trust a cupcake.”

“Those cupcakes you bought us seemed trustworthy.”

“They were alternative motive cupcakes,” Finn says.

“Ulterior, darling,” Kurt whispers, starting to measure out flour. “Ulterior motive. Like.” He pauses. “Interior is inside, exterior is outside, and ulterior is something beyond what’s seen right away.”

“So, like a _third_ side?” Finn asks. “Well, damn. It’s practically a whole box!”

Kurt flicks the back of Finn’s head. “Be nice.”

“I was already nice!”

“Then be nicer!”

“You boys are aware that you’re ridiculous, right?” Burt asks. “Suddenly, Carole’s movie doesn’t seem quite so bad. I think I’ll leave you to your, uh, cupcake–making.”

Kurt turns around and smiles. “Okay, Dad. Thanks!” Burt shakes his head at them one more time, then walks back into the living room. Kurt shifts so that his side is against the counter and he’s facing Finn. “We are go for Pensacola,” he informs Finn. 

“Yes!” Finn says, pumping his fists in the air. “White sand and… whatever else you get at beaches!”

“Seafood?” Kurt guesses. “Saltwater? Hotel room?”

“I’ll be nice in the hotel room,” Finn promises. “Soooo nice.”

“Oh?” Kurt sighs and tries to look disappointed. “I was rather hoping you’d be a little naughty.”

“I can do that, too. I can do both,” Finn says. “I can multitask.”

“Oh good.” Kurt grins. “Then multitask me three eggs and both of us another beer.”

 

Puck opens his eyes once close to six, realizes it’s Saturday, and then grins when he feels Finn and Kurt pressing against either side of him. Then he promptly closes his eyes, not waking up again until close to nine. 

He moves slightly, turning his head to his right and then his left, trying to determine if Kurt or Finn either one are awake. “Morning?” he finally says quietly. 

“Hmm?” Finn mumbles. “Is it early?”

“Almost nine,” Puck answers, then runs his finger down Kurt’s nose. “Oh, damn, too much shit to do before the party.”

“Nine is early,” Finn says. “Cupcakes are already done. Pot–free, though.”

“Oh, man, sweet.” Puck yawns. “Chocolate, though, I hope.”

“Cocaine.”

Puck snorts. “Asshole. We can’t give Hannah drugs. The rest of them, sure, but not Hannah. Oh, and probably not Stevie, either. Sam might beat us up.” He repeats the same motion on Kurt’s nose, and this time Kurt wrinkles his nose and blinks his eyes, still not saying anything.

“Asshole,” Finn returns. “Like Sam could beat me up. And I wouldn’t let him beat you up.”

“I don’t know, dude. I think he already started his summer workouts or whatever. Might be able to give you a run for your money.” Puck laughs. 

“There’s a money run?” Kurt says sleepily. “I thought we decided not to smuggle dope, darling.”

“Sam couldn’t beat me up,” Finn grumbles. “And, ok, fine. They’re just chocolate. No drugs.”

“Of course not.” Kurt yawns. “What are we talking about? And I hope she didn’t put up the butter I left sitting out for the frosting.”

“Puck thinks Sam could beat me up. I don’t know anything about the butter.”

“I didn’t say that.” Puck shakes his head. “I said he might beat _us_ up, if we gave Stevie drugs.”

“There’s a simple solution for that.” Kurt sits up and makes a face. “Don’t let Sam find out if we give Stevie drugs. No, wait. Don’t give Stevie drugs.”

Puck snorts. “Right. So. We have to frost them?”

“Yes.” Kurt nods. “Right after Finn uses his ninja skills.”

“Orange juice ninja’s on it!” Finn says. “And Sam could _so_ not beat me up. I don’t care how great his abs are.”

“I’m going to warn people about you and orange juice forever,” Kurt declares. “But you can’t leave yet.”

“Why not?”

“Kisses,” Puck answers for Kurt, pulling Finn towards him and then stopping with their lips just barely apart. “You know. If you want.”

“Yeah, I want,” Finn says, closing the small space between them. Puck curls his hand around the back of Finn’s neck, holding him in place as Puck runs his tongue along Finn’s lips and then pushes into Finn’s mouth before slowly pulling away. 

“Good,” Kurt says, leaning over to press his own mouth firmly against Finn’s. Finn grabs Kurt and pulls him down on top of Puck. 

“I didn’t know we were Tinkertoys or something,” Puck protests, wrapping one arm around Kurt’s waist and sliding the other back around Finn’s head. 

“Yes,” Finn says. “Stackable.”

“Seems like you should have been the bottom of the stack,” Puck says, looking askance at Finn. “Since you’re so strong and all.”

“Whatever, asshole. You love it.”

“I’d love it if one of you were fucking me right now,” Puck shoots back. “But neither of you are, so.”

“I could make that happen,” Finn offers. “Kurt’s in the way, though.”

“Kurt is reminding both of you that we’re supposed to be making frosting and going to Hannah’s birthday party,” Kurt says dryly. 

“Is making frosting _really_ a job for three people, though?” Finn asks. “I mean, you remember that one time I tried to make frosting.”

“You can sit there and look pretty while we make it. Also you can carry things to the Nav.”

Finn sighs. “Carrying the heavy things _is_ my job.”

“You do a good job with it,” Puck offers with a shrug. 

“I’m getting up now,” Kurt announces, and he does exactly that. “Darling?”

“Ok, ok. I’m, uh. Sneaking across the hall to my room and pretending I was there all night?”

Kurt sighs. “Yes.”

Finn gets up somewhat reluctantly, but successfully sneaks back into his room, and after about twenty minutes, they all end up in the kitchen, where the frosting is made, mostly by Kurt. The cupcakes look good after they finish, though, and then it’s getting close to time to go pick up Hannah and head to the pool. 

“Time to go,” Puck announces. “Everything down here, K?”

Kurt nods. “It is. Everyone’s ready?”

“Who’s everyone?” Finn asks. “Wait, am I going, too?”

Puck shrugs. “You don’t have to, I guess.”

“No, I want to! I just don’t have any swim trunks on or with me or whatever,” Finn says. “Hang on.” He bolts back upstairs and quickly returns with the swim trunks in his hand. “Now I’m ready!”

Hannah is literally waiting at the door of the apartment, and they get to the pool at Schoonover on schedule, about an hour before the actual party’s supposed to start. Kurt starts decorating and Finn volunteers to swim with Hannah to “keep the other kids in the pool from drowning.” For his part, Puck more or less does what Kurt tells him to do, at least as far as decorating, and then he goes and settles up the bill with the woman behind the front desk. 

Finn and Hannah come back over to their table a few minutes before any of the guests show up, and after Rebecca, the next one there is Stevie, only this year Sam’s brought him instead of Mrs. Evans, who Puck still secretly thinks might have the best gaydar in Allen County. 

“Hey, guys,” Sam greets them. 

“Zup, Sam,” Finn says, offering up a fist for Sam to bump. 

Sam grins sort of wryly at Puck and Kurt as he returns the fist bump. “Mostly been trying calm Mercedes down.”

“I might’ve ignored her texts,” Kurt admits. “All twenty-seven of them.”

Sam winces. “Didn’t realize she’d managed to send that many.”

“I didn’t realize it was actually any of her business.” Puck shrugs and then looks over where Hannah, Stevie, and Rebecca are not–so–subtly trying to listen to their conversation. “Shoo, squirt.”

“Noah!”

“You can’t have cupcakes until you swim for awhile, and you can’t have presents until after cupcakes.” Puck shrugs again. “You decide, Hannah.”

“We’re going to go swim now!” Hannah announces, and the three of them take off for the pool. 

“So, how’s the new workout program going?” Finn asks Sam. 

“I used to think Beiste was tough!” Sam laughs. “You started yet?”

“Monday,” Finn says. “It’ll give me something else to keep busy, right? That’s a good thing!”

“And you can practice lifting the heavy things,” Kurt says with a smirk. 

“ _Totally_ my job, dude!”

“I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to a Louisiana summer,” Sam says. “Guess maybe that’s why my list had all that jock itch cream.”

“Wait, what?” Puck turns towards Sam and shakes his head. “Jock itch cream? They make you like… stock up?”

“Dude, it’s a whole thing,” Finn says, holding up a hand in warning. “Seriously. It was on his list, like how I had those little hand warmer things on mine. Oh, and Karofsky had hand sanitizer. Apparently those guys at Georgia Tech aren’t good hand washers or whatever. I don’t even know.”

Kurt wrinkles his nose. “I thought science people were supposed to be careful about those things.”

“Yeah, I think Karofsky’s going there to, like, draw houses or something,” Finn says, shrugging. “Maybe it’s the not–science people.”

“Now I’m having weird flashbacks to second grade art.” Puck makes a face. 

“But yeah,” Sam says apologetically, “you can probably expect to be cornered tomorrow during the graduation rehearsal. Or at least she’s probably going to attempt to corner you.” He reaches into his pocket and unfolds a sheet of paper. “I stole her list of questions, though.”

“She wrote her questions down?” Finn frowns and he shakes his head. “Even Rachel didn’t do that.”

“She said she didn’t want to forget any of them,” Sam snorts. “I mean. I’m not making fun, here, it’s just, like you said, dude. Not actually any of her business.”

“Well, we knew a few people might be upset.” Puck shrugs. “Guess it’s lucky it’s just one so far.”

“Yeah, I thought Quinn might flip, but she was, like, super calm or something,” Finn says. “What was up with that?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Puck admits. 

“She was sort of strange on Wednesday morning,” Kurt points out. “Remember when she brought you your square?” He shrugs. “Who knows.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” The remainder of the kids and their parents all start to arrive then, and Puck’s kept fairly busy for the next two or so hours, until all of the kids start to leave and they have to carry even more stuff back to the Nav. Puck would think that there’d be less, but presents take up more room than cupcakes or decorations. 

“Can we go get ice cream?” Hannah asks when everything’s loaded and all the other kids are gone. 

Puck grins. “We can go get Blizzards. You know why?”

“Brownie batter,” Kurt answers. “Because it’s June.”

“Exactly!”

 

The day of graduation starts out cloudy, which isn’t a good sign, because graduation’s outside on the football field, and if it starts to rain, there’s not an inside venue where everyone can fit. Carole fixes a huge breakfast and starts gushing over all three of them and it’s a relief to head over early for the rehearsal. 

“I feel gratitude towards Schue right now,” Kurt says as they pull away. “The extra twenty minutes to run through ‘Seasons of Love’ is twenty minutes less of… whatever that was.”

“She’s in a mood this morning,” Finn says. “Guess everybody’s all happy again now.”

“She was putting me in a mood, that’s for sure,” Puck grumbles, leaning against the door window. “At least it looks less like raining. Could you imagine if they moved it inside and Nana didn’t get in? They’d have to call out the National Guard for the riots she’d lead.”

“Save us from your Nana, dude. I do _not_ want to see her pissed!”

“I know!” Puck yawns. “And the no outside food or drink rule is bad, too.”

“The one time Figgins enforces anything. I suppose it’s his last chance.”

Schue has them run through ‘Seasons of Love’ twice and it goes fine, which Puck and everyone else could have told Schue, which means that they have at least ten minutes to avoid Mercedes before the actual rehearsal starts inside the gym. Sam’s doing his best to distract her, Puck thinks, but he does wonder how long Sam can hold her off. 

Puck feels a tap on his shoulder, and when he turns, Quinn is standing there. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” she asks.

“Sure,” Puck shrugs. At the very least, it might keep Mercedes away, and at least for the past month or two, Mercedes has been far crazier than Quinn. Plus, there’s witnesses.

“So,” Quinn says, keeping her voice low. “You and Kurt?”

“Yeah.” Puck nods. “It’s… kind of not a secret anymore, so.”

“Well, if you _want_ me to call Mercedes’ attention to this conversation, I could raise my voice,” Quinn says, but she smiles. “I thought maybe you’d like to make it through graduation without that happening, though.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, well. As long as she doesn’t launch herself across the stage or something.”

“It’s a possibility. She’s trying to work herself up over this. Not that I think it’s really about this, but _this_ is what she’s focusing on.” Quinn sighs. “Are you happy?”

“Yeah,” Puck answers, a little startled by her question. “I mean, you know, didn’t really anticipate most of what’s happened this year, but yeah. I am. We are.”

“Then that’s all I need to know. None of the rest of it is any of my business.”

Puck laughs again. “I said pretty much the same thing about Mercedes yesterday at Hannah’s party. Except I have no idea why she’s spent the entire year, off and on, telling Kurt there was no way he could have a date, blah blah blah.”

Quinn giggles. “If anybody ever doubted his choice to go a performing arts school,” she says, shaking her head. “Maybe you should have gone, too. You had at least two of us fooled.”

“Nooo, I was so bad at it.” Puck snorts. “We coasted on the fact that most teenagers are self-absorbed and relatively unobservant. I think our physics class had us figured out by October, though.”

“So, what about Finn?” Quinn asks. 

Puck starts to splutter a little before it occurs to him that _no_ , Quinn is probably not asking about their threesome. Probably she wants to know how long Finn’s known. That he can answer. “He claims to have known longer than we have, actually.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what Finn notices,” Quinn sighs. “He probably did.”

“He’s one of those savants when it comes to relationships, maybe.” Puck shrugs. Figgins’ secretary walks into the gym with a bullhorn and tells them all to get on their gowns and line up for rehearsal, which basically means that everyone gets their gowns, lines up, and then they all start swapping places. 

Since they start in alphabetical order, Puck just swaps his way up the alphabet until he swaps a final time with Lucy Hyde, placing him right behind Finn and Kurt. 

“Took you long enough,” Kurt says with a grin. 

“Hey!” Finn adds. “You should have planned ahead and changed your name to something with an ‘H’ at the beginning.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what my mom was thinking,” Puck snorts. “I could be Hunter or something, if only she’d thought ahead.”

“Puck Hunter is a weird name. Or a show on the Discovery Channel,” Finn says. “I’d watch it.”

“Only if they make my Guitar Choppers show first, dude,” Puck says sadly, shaking his head. 

“Should we be worried that we come up with so many ideas for reality shows?” Kurt asks, creasing his forehead slightly. 

“We’re highly talented and artistic individuals,” Finn says, in his serious voice. “And we will achieve great things.” He snickers and adds, “I totally got that in a fortune cookie.”

Kurt and Puck both laugh as Figgins’ secretary starts talking on her bullhorn again, this time to tell them to head outside towards the stadium. 

“Well, Munsters.” Puck slings his arms over their shoulders. “Let’s do this thing.”

  


**FINN**  
(That’s Latin for ‘this fic is over’)


End file.
